Joshua Tree Foot Trails and Star Trails
Rocks and dramatically shaped trees make for fascinating playgrounds for all ages. Approximately 140 miles from Los Angeles is a unique public lands gem, Joshua Tree National Park, that has those features in abundance. Cindy, my companion in life's adventures and I had been looking for something to carry us away from the sometimes dreary and chilly environment of the Pacific Northwest, where we live. Oregon is a delightful place to enjoy the outdoors 6-7 months out of the year, but late November through March, it can be bit of a drag unless you are able to partake of the delights of the snow filled mountains. Unfortunately, those days are gone for both of us. So, we tend to seek the warmth and sunshine of the desert southwest during these months. Joshua Tree seemed to meet our needs.
We were fortunate to find a vacation rental near the park's north entrance. From there, a 25-30-minute drive and we were in the park. Joshua Tree National Park was established in 1994 with the creation of the California Desert Protection Act and now encompasses 792,510 acres that include two different desert landscapes, the Colorado Desert and the Mojave Desert. Each desert area has its own charms and points of interest.
We spent our time in the Mojave Desert portion of the park where there are several easy trails and one moderate hike that we were able to take. It is also where many of the interesting rock formations exist. The difficulty rating of various trails is primarily due to distance and elevation gain or loss, but we occasionally needed to squeeze, crawl, and slide to complete an "easy" hike. Both of us have some physical limitations so we avoided the more difficult trails that other hikers might enjoy, like the Hall of Horrors. That's not to say that we didn't have some challenges along the way, but that added to the sense of adventure.
We chose to make the trip in February to avoid most of the spring break crowd. We don't actually know how crowded it got in March, but we assumed the population of the park would swell. For the first few days the weather was what we were hoping for, but the last few days the wind picked up beyond 10-15 mph with nearly 30 mph gusts and the temperature cooled to an unpleasant degree. So, we spent that time enjoying the views from our rental, reading, and reviewing and deleting photos.
I have included several photos in this blog to help the reader imagine the park and the possible adventures that await the explorer. Toward the end of the blog, I have included a star-trails photo, and a description of the experience taking that composition.
I lead with this photo to represent the various shapes and arrangements of the rocks that jut from the landscape of the park.
Skull Rock, Joshua Tree NPThis probably is the most photographed rock formation in Joshua Tree NP
Trails through the park lead past various rock formations, and it is fun to imagine what the shape represents in standard reality. Many of the shapes have been named already, but some invite the hiker to find their own title for the designs they pass. We were able to come up with a few. I'm sure you can imagine what this rock is called. It certainly has a sinister appearance, and it is named Skull Rock.
This photo shows one rock formation that we named "Salmon Leaping".
This grove of Joshua Trees looked like a military formation to me. I could imagine them marching in my direction. Actually, the "tree" (also known as Yucca palm) is classified as Yucca brevifolia, a member of the Agave family. It is common to the Mojave Desert, but can be found elsewhere in the southwest. The apocryphal story about the naming of the plant can be traced to the Mormon settling the area. According to the story, the settlers thought the tree resembled the image of Joshua raising his arms toward the heavens.
I was fortunate to photograph some roadrunners. This bird appears to be listening. Perhaps it's for Wile E Coyote or just a lizard or insect. Nevertheless, it was one of the few "still" photographs I was able to take.
Joshua Tree roadrunner.This roadrunner was, well, running. It seemed to be chasing elusive lizards.
Is Wile E Coyote in pursuit of this roadrunner? Probably not, although I did hear coyotes nearby in the evening hours. This roadrunner appeared to be chasing a lizard. They are capable of 25 mph and can fly short distances to a branch on a Joshua Tree to catch a lizard or evade a predator. I was able to get a sharp photo by panning and a shutter speed of 1/1600 of a second.
Despite having a back fusion a few months before, I took some "challenging hikes" in Joshua Tree. I really did crawl through that opening in the first photo in this group. That trail continued to be difficult and eventually I had to come to a stop. Some of the other photos are shared to demonstrate the unique features of some of the trails and the tight spaces you might encounter. Again, we avoided the most challenging, and we enjoyed the opportunity to test our abilities.
We were lucky to have a kind fellow hiker offer to take this photo of me and my partner in adventure, Cindy. As you can see by the smile on our faces, we were having a good time.
This is a night photo taken near the time I initiated the process of taking the foundation photographs for my star-trail composition. If you look closely, you can see slight movement in the stars toward the edge of the photograph. You can see the results of my effort in the next image.
What you see is not your standard photograph. This image exhibits the rotation of the earth with Polaris as the center of the star trails. I took over 300 photographs at 30-second intervals over 2.5 hours in an area behind a "Dark Sky" designated area of Joshua Tree. I must admit I was a little spooked by my location in the dark on a clear and cold February night where the stars and critters were my only companions. I took the trip by myself over two nights because I was not satisfied with the first night's results. While I was sitting in my camp chair keeping an eye and ear on the intervalometer and reading my iPhone to pass the time, the wind was gusting and wicking away my warmth. Despite wearing a light jacket, the last 15-30 minutes I was shivering. It was time to wrap it up. Both nights when I left the location of my star-trail photography, my car thermometer registered 38 degrees. I took these photos behind the Hidden Valley area. I used a tripod to hold my Canon 5D Mark III cameral and intervalometer steady and used a remote to trigger the photographic process.
To create the final composit image in Adobe, I needed to merge the over 300 photographs. Once merged, I could see several examples of visual pollution. I spent significant time going over each frame and removing distracting lights crossing the axis of the image; numerous lights from planes, satellites and chromatic aberrations interfered with the natural beauty. In hindsight, I would do it again.
You can purchase many of these photos by clicking on an image. You can explore the rest of my photos once you are in the gallery.
This is a video retracing my steps from the location for taking the star-trails composition to my car. I hiked this trail in the dark with a head lamp. It seemed more eerie in the dark.