The first and the last, Joshua Tree NP, California

Our last stop on our winter/spring desert tour was Joshua Tree NP in California. We have visited Joshua Tree several times over the years and it holds a tender spot in my heart. It was my first experience with a desert and I fell in love. The vastness, the giant rocks and boulders, the cacti, the Joshua Trees and all the adaptations by the flora and fauna to survive. The novelty of it, for someone from Vermont with no desert experience, fascinated me.  

For those of you keeping track, we have now hit the fourth of the four major deserts in the US, the Mojave desert.  The Mojave desert is characterized by  alternating mountain ranges and basins, with mostly low widely spaced shrubs for vegitation. The upper elevations have Joshua Trees, pinyon pines and junipers. The other half of Joshua Tree NP is the Colorado desert; this is not the fifth desert, but a subset of the Sonoran desert. It is extremely dry with lots of cacti and, dare I say, is rather inhospitable. It is known for its Teddy Bear or Jumping Cholla and ocotillo cactus groves. It also has some fine examples of fan palm oases in the midst of this barrenness. One of our hikes was to one of these oases, 49 palms. 

The indigenous peoples, the Maara'yam, have a great creation story regarding the palm trees. According to legend, they were living in the San Bernardino mountains to the west, but they had difficulty conceiving baby boys. A medicine man told them to go into the desert until they found water. That would be a good place to live and many boys would be born. The medicine man said each time a baby boy was born, they should plant a palm tree. The first year they gave birth to 29 boys and the 29 Palm Oasis was created. The Maara'yam consider palm trees to be sacred, not just trees, but their ancestors.

We did the usual activities, hiking and biking. Looked for flora and fauna. We had great timing with the wild flowers on one of the hikes, explored Keyes Ranch which remained occupied into the 1970s and as for fauna … it was mostly birds, ground squirrels and lizards. But I like lizards, even if I can't identify them 🤷, and we met one that I thought was so hysterical, I'm using it as my screensaver. 😂

On to pics …

driving through the park, layered mountains

I feel like I comment on this all the time, but note how flat the basin is and then the mountains just jut up. Occasionally there will be an alluvial fan of debris washing off the mountain, but the rest of the time, boom, straight up.

The twenty nine palm oasis, the namesake of Twenty Nine Palms, CA. One of the entrance towns to Joshua Tree.

Some of the amazing boulders and rock formations.

Face rock

Joshua Tree is a climber's paradise

Mastedon rock

Prickly Pear in bloom

Chia plants! Cha, Cha, chia pet 🎶 

En mass these were really pretty, but close up … not the prettiest bloom in the bunch

These pretty little flowers , surprisingly, were desert dandelions. So much prettier than our regular ones.

Scarlet Hedgehog cactus

A couple of types of prickly pear. I think this is a beaver tail cactus.

I think this is an eastern prickly pear.

Joshua Trees blossoming!  We've never seen that before!  

One of my favorite, morbidly fascinating desert adaptations is of the loggerhead shrike (a bird) and the way it  uses the Joshua trees. They spear their prey, often lizards, on the spiky leaves to kill it. Then eat it. Yikes! Life is harsh in the desert! 🏜️

Red barrel cactus. We saw a bunch of these on our 49 palm oasis hike.

Ok, this was one of my favorite lizards. He was hanging out, sunbathing on this rock. I moved in to take some pics. He did NOT want to give up his perfect spot so he went into these antics where he puffed himself up (so he would look big and scary) and then proceeded to do pushups. I kid you not. I was practically in tears. 😂 Eventually he lost his stream and shrunk back down to his normal size.  Martin thought he was trying to come on to me and was just showing me his muscles. 😂😂

These are the ruins of a ranch house.  They also had a small mining operation there.

Here's a pic of Keys' ranch. They were very creative about trying to make a living out in the desert. Not only did they raise cattle (again, I say, what did they expect the cattle would eat???), they mined, made honey, had a farm type petting zoo, collected lots of old tools, bedsteads, trucks, etc, and offered tours, rented space to Walt Disney studios, and had a little B&B before that was what they were called. He also built a trail that boyscouts would hike, then do chores on the ranch and get a badge.  He was always thinking of ways to make ends meet. He lived in the property until the '70s.

Martin and I smooching in front of heart rock. ❤️

This guy was enormous!  We encountered him on our 49 palms oasis hike. Again, not sure what kind he is, but I do like his disc shaped belly and striped tail.

Ah, here is the 49 fan palm tree oasis far in the distance. We've already climbed a mountain and come around the side, now we have to go down, down, down.  I don't think I've mentioned it, but it was quite hot in Joshua Tree, 90s. It was super hot climbing back out! 🥵💧

We're getting closer,

and closer…

How beautiful and shaded and green. There were also some good sized bees that according to all the signage could be quite aggressive … but we were fine.

A somewhat rumpled looking adolescent Costa Hummingbird I always think they look like they have on a Darth Vader helmet, haha 

This is the other side of the park. More vegitation and much greener. Still just as hot though. But we were smarter and started this hike at about 5:30 pm.

A Scott's Oriole 

Then there was this little disaster that happened at our campsite ...  and this is what came back to!  Apparently, the ground squirrels thought my succulent-scape was delightful too 😱  Lost two complete plants, one has several leaves sampled and one was ok.

So, sorry, lyric, my homage to Shrek with the ogre ears … is no more.  Now I'll have to try to get a few more cacti and not take it outside again! 😂😂😳

I tried a couple of night shots from our campsite of the rocks, full moon, Venus and that little dot off to the left is Mars, I think, but I might have those mixed up 🤷.

My first attempt at time lapse night time photography. I fear the full moon was not my friend and I believe I was photo bombed by an airplane, haha. But I still think it's an interesting shot.

Next stop: Mugu Point SP, CA, just north of Malibu.