Joshua Tree – where's treve?

Alamo Canyon. Organ Pipe National Monument.

We’re on our return trip from two weeks in the desert. Our adventures have taken us through Red Rock Canyon State Park, Anza Borrego Desert State Park, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and the Mojave Desert Preserve. Organ Pipe represents the Sonoran Desert with the iconic Saguaro Cactus, while Joshua Tree stands as the icon of the Mojave Desert. In Organ Pipe I was hiking in shorts and T-shirt, while in Mojave we woke to snow and 22 degree temperatures with howling winds.

We have WiFi access at the moment, so I thought I’d put up a short post to give you a preview of what to expect as I cue up the posts for the various segments of our trip. We’ve been traveling in our Four Wheel Pop-up Camper which has proven to be a comfortable way to travel. Stay tuned as I cue up more photos and stories about our trip.

For the last night of my Eastern Sierra trip, the evening of December 30, I thought it would be fun to camp in the Joshua Trees. This leg of my journey took me South from Lone Pine on US Highway 395 and then west on 178 over Walker Pass. There is a campsite at Walker Pass, but having camped there before I knew that there were no Joshua Trees at the campground. My plan was to camp at Walker Pass if I didn’t find something suitable on the way up to the pass. Just a few miles east of the pass I saw a dirt road going off into the desert. There were no gates, no fences or nor any signs indicating that it was private property so I assumed it was BLM land, part of the California Desert Conservation area. I put the truck in four wheel drive and drove a short distance where I found a spot where I could camp in a grove of Joshua trees with a minimum of impact on the environment.

As the sun was setting I grabbed my camera and captured a few images. Then after dark I thought it would be fun to try some night photography, playing with lights on the trees and trying my hand at capturing the Milky Way.