National Park #2, canceled May 27, 2018
After many trips to REI over the years and lots of “someday” dreaming, we finally went on our first real backpacking excursion. The weather in Joshua Tree was gorgeous: mid-70’s with a cool breeze – absolutely perfect for our walk through the desert.
We started our visit by putting our all-wheel-drive to use on Geology Tour Road. The free guides were gone, so we didn’t get much of a tour, but we did drive the entirety of the road. The kids particularly liked the bumpy parts over rocks. We stopped along the way at a nice rock pile for them to climb on. That’s their favorite thing to do in Joshua Tree, so we built in a lot of time for scrambling this trip.
Around 5:00, we set off from the Keys West backcountry board, headed north on Boy Scout Trail. The whole thing goes 7.5 miles to Indian Cove, but for our first backpacking trip, we wanted to keep it pretty simple so we started looking for a good campsite around 2 miles. Along the way we found another great boulder pile that the kids scrambled up. They saw a bunny from their vantage point, but Jeremy and I had to make do with a lizard from ours.
Shortly past that, we spied a smaller boulder pile that would work well for our overnight shelter. We trekked off trail a little ways to get to it, and decided to pitch our tent behind it. Jeremy made dinner with his new Jetboil while I set up camp and the girls (surprise, surprise) climbed the rocks. It was warm enough that we didn’t need the rain fly, and we spent a delightful night alone under the stars.
We woke up around 7:00 the next morning to another cool, clear day in the Joshua Tree backcountry. Jeremy made breakfast while I packed up the gear (yes, the girls climbed some more), then we hit the trail back to our car. We all saw a bunny around the same place the girls did yesterday, which was the largest wildlife we found on this trip.
We had arranged to meet some friends at the Oasis Visitor Center around noon. When they arrived, we explored the Oasis of Mara, then drove into the main section of the park. They had never been before, so we stopped at some of our favorite places to show them around. First up was the rocks near Skull Rock. The kids scrambled all over some pretty large boulders for close to an hour. They surprised us all with their agility and independent risk-assessment.
It was difficult to pull them away from boulder scrambling, but we managed to get everyone back in the car for a stop at Keys View. The Salton Sea was clearly visible, along with the expanse of the Colorado desert and the Palm Springs basin. Next up was Cap Rock, our last stop before heading back to the visitor center to receive their hard-earned Junior Ranger badges.
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