Monday morning, I left Big River and drove out to Joshua Tree National Park. I entered the park through the Twentynine Palms entrance on the North side. The rangers recommended camping in Jumbo Rocks and cycling from Barker Dam. On the drive in, I scouted out the locations of some of the things I wanted to check out over my stay. Once parked, I set out on a 22 mile bicycle ride from Barker Dam around the Park Road to Skull Rock and back. The terrain was mostly hills, although with long, gradual inclines. It was a great ride and I learned a little bit of a lesson afterward... Make sure to put PLENTY of sunscreen on your legs! I got a little sunburnt around the lower thighs and on the back of my calves.
After the ride, I drove to Jumbo Rocks, claimed a campsite in a cool little tree-covered notch in the rocks and set up camp. I decided then to drive to one of the higher spots in the park, Key's Look, which offers views to the East and West for miles and miles. Once back in camp, I climbed Jumbo Rock and read for a little while, climbed back down and had dinner, then climbed right back up to watch the sunset from the top. It was beautiful.
Once the sun had set, I started getting ready for bed. I crawled into my sleeping bag, watched a video on my iPod and then turned on some music. Sometime around 10:30pm I woke up to the sounds of what I am pretty sure was coyotes roving through my campsite... I'm pretty sure they were right outside the tent and I heard one of them wimpering and howling nearby - I believe next to the camp's trash recepticle. And at one point, I think I heard and felt one nosing around my tent. I tried to look around in the morning for proof they had been there, but the gravel didn't offer many opportunities to find discernable footprints.
I was up pretty early the next morning and broke camp to go back to Barker Dam to take a 2.2 mile nature hike... The hike was nice. It was early and quiet enough that many of the animals and birds were out gathering food, drinking from the small reservoir and sunning on rocks. I saw lizards, lots of birds including a large raven, two varieties of ground squirrel, and several jack rabbits. It was a nice way to wrap my stay at Joshua Tree - and I will DEFINITELY be going back for a return visit. If you haven't checked it out, get out there!
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