As close as it is to the LA area, Joshua Tree has a lot of space and some nice day hikes. I started off with Ryan Mountain and then did two other double digit milers. The Joshua Trees are striking, and there are hikes into Palm Oases that are interesting as well. Lot of campgrounds, but this is not a place one wants to be at the height of summer. Rainfall the year before I came was about two-thirds of one inch. That’s right. Less than an inch.
I took the 13 hour drive during June, which is not the best time to visit Big Bend. But it was great, anyway. The South Rim trail has about 2000 feet of climbing and is a nice 12-15 mile hike, depending upon whether one wants to add Emory Peak to it. I did.
I saw both summer tanagers and western tanagers. On the South Rim, one walks for several miles above the Chihuahan Desert below. I saw nobody the day I did it. But what was really neat, to this weather junkie, was the “steam” I saw ahead of me. It was humid air flowing from the south, hitting the cliff walls, being pushed up and condensing before me. This is called orographic lift and is why mountains get more rain than valleys–they provide a lifting mechanism that cools the air and wrings the water out of it, just as making a balloon with water in it smaller wrings the water out of it, too.
I also did the hike to the Window.
After seeing Guadalupe Mountains, I drove to Carlsbad Caverns, which I had wanted to see for a long time. It is a beautiful cave, but I wish I could have walked back up and out rather than having to take the elevator! There are some hiking trails nearby as well. I had no idea the number of national parks with caves. There are Carlsbad and Mammoth; there are also Wind Cave and Great Basin NP’s Lehman Caves. I’m not much of a spelunker, but the cave parks are as interesting as are any of the others!
Shortly before New Years’, I drove over to Guadalupe Mountains NP in west Texas, arriving at 2. It was breezy down at Park Headquarters at about 5500 feet altitude, and the ranger told me that it would really be blowing on top of Guadalupe Peak. The hike is about 8 miles round trip with 3000 feet of climbing. I decided to go as high as I could before I hit wind. I went up and up, and there wasn’t much wind. Finally, with about 300 vertical feet to the summit, I realized I could do this. A short while later, I was the highest person in Texas. I was on top of Guadalupe Peak in dead calm. Now I just had to get down before it got dark, which of course, it does early that time of year. It was a memorable hike, and the views of the Salt Flats that I had driven over just 3 hours earlier were remarkable. Neat park!
The second park on my odyssey, Theodore Roosevelt, is located west of Dickinson, ND, in the western part of the state. It is possible to fly into Dickinson and drive to Medora, just outside the Park.
I spent the first day driving the roads, and the second and third days doing day hikes through the badlands of the park. The main concern is staying out of the way of bison, of which there are many. There are also wild horses, which are more curious than a problem. The Paddock and Talkington trails are good day hikes without much significant climbing, nice views, and plenty of prairie dog villages. Note: the bentonite is extremely slick if wet, so rain can make some of these hikes a lot different experiences.
The third day, I went through Petrified Forest Wilderness and did a big loop using part of the Maah Daah Hey trail. On the last day, I did a loop I hadn’t done before, drove up to the North Unit and did a few hikes to viewpoints. The North Unit is very remote and rugged, but striking in its own way.
All the National Parks are special in their own way: “Teddy” was no exception.
Boreal B[l]og 