Joshua Tree!

---

A strip of Mojave Desert, Joshua Tree National Park is an area with very little water, scorching sun, blowing sand, beautiful spring flowers at this time of the year and a profusion of boulders pilled up in curious ways resembling toy blocks in a gigantic, sandy playground.

Despite its harsh conditions, though sparsely, desert-dwellers thrive in this habitat: several types of birds, jackrabbits, lizards, squirrels, rats, snakes, some curious beetles that do a 'headstand' when threatened, besides other animals such as foxes, iguanas, desert tortoises, bighorn sheep and the greater roadrunner - a strong bird that moves fast and captures lizards and rattlesnakes (it inspired the cartoon character Bip-Bip, remember?)

Obviously this desert is famous for the gracious, strange-looking species of yucca which seemed to stretch their branches to show the pioneers what directions to take and so became known as Joshua Trees. Plus, this is a boulder's paradise with many classic climbing routes.

In the evening moon light, I walked around and climbed the round, crumbly, gigantic round boulders and heard the call of the western screech owl. In the morning, David and Pam joined me for a little climbing at Jumbo Rocks, bringing some delicious chicken cesar salad. They enjoyed the day in the park and came back at the weekend. Together we walked through the rough grounds looking for Atlantis, a popular crag at the end of Lost Horse Valley (an appropriate name as it was easy for us to sympathise with the horse!). When we eventually found our way, we were pleased to do some more rock climbing, my first time climbing in this trip and definitely not enough to quench my thirst.

Another night. And this time I joined a bunch of mad guys climbing through tunnels and galleries in completely darkness, crawling through a so called 'birth canal', descending drop-offs, jumping exposed ledges until getting into the infamous Cavern of the Doom, not without the top of my head bleeding from a crash to a boulder inside one of the tunnels... What a joy it is to be free to do whatever one wishes!

---

Comments

[John]

Hot!
That does look absolutely baking! It's hot here too but I think it's gonna thunderstorm tomorrow. Here's hoping for some more sun in London too!