Joshua Tree National Park, September 2001

Rocks, yucca, and other desert shrubbery

2001's annual `Zion Hike' camping trip was to Joshua Tree National Park instead.

We stayed at one of the group camp sites, which are up in the northern part of the park, but not off the main road.  From these it is a short hike to an overlook down into the marine training area to the north.  There is not much to see, but I took this picture anyway, in which you can see that the once-clear desert air is starting to get smoggy.  (Perhaps this has something to do with the town of Yucca Valley, which had around 3000 people in 1998, having become a city of 30,000 in 2001.)

Some of the rocks in the area are very rounded (as in the two pictures above) and some are rather jagged.  Either way, there are a lot of rocks.  (In fact, Joshua Tree is something of a rock-climber's paradise.)

Even in September, it was quite warm.  We all took one trip through the park itself, where someone in a van (not the car immediately in front of me in the picture above, I think) was throwing food to a coyote.  You are not supposed to do this, but as long as someone else was, I figured I might as well try for a picture.  Of course, with the cheap point-and-shoot and no zoom, all I got was the above, but oh well.

Otherwise we mostly lolled in camp, trying to stay in what little shade there was.  Septembers can be pleasant and are sometimes a good time to visit, but this particular weekend was a bit too hot.

I probably should have taken a few more pictures, but it was more fun playing with other people's Real Cameras than with my little toy.  I did take a few snapshots of the teddy-bear cholla in the Cholla Garden on the road connecting from the main park road down to I-10.

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