TR: Pennsylvanian does J-tree in One Morning
Mike Yukish
OK, maybe not all of it. But what I saw was cool.
I flew out to San Diego on the Saturday following thanksgiving, and picked
up my rental car (flaming red Grand Am with a V-6!) which would take me to
Palm Springs eventually, where I'd present a paper at a technical
conference/boondoggle. Met with the relatives in Sand Dog, had a *huge*
night of wine drinking on a boat that night, but that's a story for
rec.sailing. Next morning I took my swollen red GrandAm and the mother of
all headaches on the road, heading out on I-8 then up through the
mountains, past Warner Springs and past Santa Rosa and down into Palm
Desert. Talk about seeing forever. The comparable east coast experience
would be to cross the George Washington bridge out of Manhatten, and see
the Delaware bridge off in the distance. Shacked up in my king-sized hovel
at the Palm Springs Hilton for the night.
At the last minute when packing, I'd decided to toss in my climbing shoes,
figuring who knows what I'd find to do if I got some free time. Once in
Palm Springs I'd given the map a hard look, and decided I could get up
before first light, cruise over to JT, do a morning's worth of looking
around and bouldering, and still make it back for the conference start
that afternoon. So at 5:30 AM, with rain falling on that monday, I started
out. The rain was a little odd, I thought, since Palm Springs appears to
be a desert, but surely J-Tree is even more desert-ish and it would not be
raining there. At 6:30, when I got to the town of Joshua Tree, it was
raining. OK, it's a desert and things dry out instantly here. But after
the rain stopped it stayed cloudy, and evaporation took its own sweet
time. No problem, I'm just here to look anyway.
Being as early as it was, the Ranger booth was unmanned and I skipped the
$10.00 fee. Thought I was pretty clever about it, until they got my money
on the way out. I was blown away by Joshua Tree, but then you knew that.
Now I know where the cartoonists for the Flintstones got their ideas. Big
stone condos everywhere. I wanted to yell out "Willmmmaaaa!" at the top of
my lungs.
I stopped at the first picnic area that had a big rock next to it (Quail
something) and popped on the shoes, as things were drying out now. Here I
saw my first, and almost only, sign that other climbers use this park,
white chalk on some obvious cracks and holds. I thought I would look
around for obvious boulder problems and give them a try, but this has been
a lousy year for climbing due to work load and nagging injuries, and my
wimpy computer-geek fingertips were toasting rapidly. So I opted to just
scramble around on the rock blobs, and had a blast doing so. I hung out at
the top for a while, and saw no other signs of human life than my car, the
road, and the porta-potty. No other cars. No calls of "on-belay", "rope",
"take". Nothing. It was great.
Back in the car, and on to hidden valley. It was 8:00 when I pulled into
the picnic area, grabbed the shoes, and headed back into the Real Hidden
Valley, I guess it is called. I didn't bother to bring a guidebook.
Again, I just scrambled and bouldered for an hour and a half. Lots of
chalkmarks, some bolted routes, trails going everywhere, but no other
signs of climbers. When I got back to the car, it was still the only one
in the lot. It was 9:30 now, so I took a lap through the camping area to
check it out, and finally found the climbers. Everyone was still yawning
and scratching though, I was kind of surprised. Drove on, and stopped to
do a quick run up some mountain trail, I forget the name. It was a mile
and a half uphill , so I gave myself 20 minutes to do it. It took 30.
Thanks to my sea level legs, I guess. Killer view from the top!
The only dumb thing I did all day was to not fill up the tank before
entering the park, so I exercised prudence and headed back the way I came.
Another stop at Hidden Valley, and I *finally* saw some climbing going on.
No idea what was being climbed, but it looked cool.
So on out of the park, and the only thing that could properly finish the
morning was lunch at a Taqueria. But I didn't see anything in the town of
Joshua Tree, and the next town was a mish-mash of Walmarts and chain
restaurants. I didn't travel all of the way across the country to eat at a
BK or a Friendly's. Thank god I found Ednardo's or Eduardo's or something
like that. Filled up on the monday lunch gutbuster special, and back to
the world of coats and ties.
In summary, it was a fantastic morning. Awesome desolation. While I am
sure the prior weekend was a zoo, coming right after thanksgiving, I felt
I had the place to myself that monday. That was probably the best part of
it. I'll be back!
--
Mike Yukish
may...@psu.edu
ARL/Penn State U
http://elvis.arl.psu.edu/~may106
Tracy & Chris Georges
(1) I'm glad you enjoyed your visit.
(2) The reason you didn't see any signs of climbing life before 9:30 on
a Monday morning in Hidden Valley Campground is because the only guys
with sites at Hidden Valley on Monday are the guys who live there, and
thus figure the rock will still be there at noon that day, and maybe
their hangover won't.
(3) It was Edchada's, the local climbing culinary Mecca.
(4) Yes, Thanksgiving weekend WAS a zoo.