Days 77 to 79: J-Tree's Summer Weather, Surreal Landscape and Rock Chaos



Bagels in the Mohave desert

 I left Red Rock Canyon on Sunday night with no destination in mind, only a plan to head toward Joshua Tree National Park and find a remote place to park for free.  Chances of success are always easy when goals are as simple as I've been keeping them on this trip.  When I got to the Mohave Desert Preserve I kept my eyes peeled for a side road and somewhere in the middle of the preserve, I found one.  It was relatively close to the main road, but far enough away to not be annoyed by the occasional passing car and I slept well in the Pathfinder through the windy, rainy night. 

Joshua Trees at dusk

When I woke up in the morning, the weather had cleared up and the light revealed my surrounding beauty.  I had a bagel for breakfast and headed toward the town of 29 Palms to log some library hours.  As usual, I spent much more time that I'd anticipated in the library and didn't get into the park until dusk.  I didn't even get to use my NP annual pass since nobody was even stationed at the park entrance to collect fees. 

It was a great time to arrive in J-Tree.  The sun was setting and painting the cool blue sky in warm blotches of yellow, orange and pink.  The horizon was hilly and rocky, interspersed with Joshua Trees posing their spiky heads in ways I'd only seen in Dr. Seuss books. 

Now this is a climbers campsite! 
Boulders and rock included

I easily found the Hidden Valley campground, the climbers' campground, and although a sign read 'lot full', I proceeded and found a couple of vacant sites to choose from.  As soon as I found one, I visited my neighbors to make sure it was a vacant site.  Kyle and Matt, like nearly all climbers I've ever encountered, were totally friendly and they informed me that my site was indeed vacant.  Moments later, Nick, another neighboring dirtbag, popped in and invited us all over for tacos.  I hadn't eaten yet so I was happy to accept.  There were about 7 others hanging around a fire they had going, a couple of Aussie girls, some guys from California and others from Washington.  We drank beer, talked and played games well into the night, which was a good change of evening routines from Red Rocks.  I popped some of uncle Roberts popcorn and threw the rest of my sweet potatoes in the fire and we all enjoyed them as they were passed around.  Sometime close to midnight I put my tent up and laid down in my extremely spacious (relative to the car) quarters and went to sleep.



Belaying Dave on the first
pitch of Dappled Mare (5.8)

 I woke up late, made a lazy breakfast, and enjoyed the warm sunny morning with my new friends.  It was a mostly relaxed crew and 5 of us decided to head over to Lost Horse Rock for some cruisy multi-pitch trad climbing. 

Dave seconding the
second pitch of Dappled
Mare (5.8)

In contrast to Red Rocks and Indian Creek, the approach was a pleasant walk through a sandy stream bed and up on some boulders.  Dave and I teamed up for a route called Dappled Mare (5.8), a 300 foot climb that we did in 2 pitches, barely.  It was a good introduction to Joshua Tree and the coarse quartz monzonite rock stuck like glue to my shoes and felt solid enough to take good gear.  I was surprised to be climbing multi-pitch routes in J-Tree since I'd always envisioned just a ton of huge boulders, but there are a few to be found.  The climb was fun, despite the crowded feel the surrounding parties added, and included some crack climbing, some slabby traversing and some face climbing that instilled trust in the grippy rock.  After we topped out, we scrambled back down via a bouldery side of the outcrop and had lunch.



Psyched at the top of Lost
Horse Rock

 The next climb we set off to do was The Swift (5.7), but somewhere near the beginning of the first pitch, I decided another variation of the climb looked more interesting and exciting.  Dave kept the excitement up with pitch 2 and from what we can gather, we actually climbed some 5.9 route whose name I forgot.  The sun was fading fast when we reached the top and we quickly descended the same way as before and walked back to Dave's car. 

The games had finsished and we traded
pics before we departed the next day

Dave had to make some phone calls in town and so I joined him for a beer and burger at a local Joshua Tree (the town) pub.  We made some calls, got some wood, and headed back to the Hidden Valley campground to find our friends sitting around a pile of coals.  We threw some logs on the fire and started another fun night of games and jokes.  That night we played the game where you have a character written on a piece of paper that's stuck to your head.  You don't know your character and must ask yes or no questions to guess who it is.  After placing last in the previous nights game, I'm proud to note that I won the character game.  I felt a bit sorry for the loser as the punishment was to, for a whole day, wear three hooker advertisement cards that I'd collected in Vegas.

The next morning started as slow and relaxed as the previous.  We decided to climb at a palce called Wonder Rocks.  It's no easy task finding routes in the guidebook or on the actual terrain.  There are literally thousands of routes in J-Tree and they're scattered amongst many thousand more similar looking rock piles.  Moreover, the guidebook writes very vauge descriptions, making it a real challenge to be sure you're on the route you want to be on. 



We started up the left
crack and finshed on the
right



When we set out in the Wonder Rocks area we tried to use the guidebook for the first 10 minutes, before giving up on it and wandering around looking for "something that looked cool".  I was with Dave and another neighbor, Kyle and before long, we spotted a curving hand crack that looked like a fun warm up.  Adventure climbing is really exciting and not using the guidebook adds an unexpected element to it.  Dave led the first pitch and as I was seconding, a chunk of rock broke off in my hand.  Luckily, I had a really solid foot jam so I didn't go anywhere, but whenever a hold breaks, it makes the rest of the climb very suspect.  I was up to lead the second pitch and did so as delicately and focused as I could.  All in all, the climb was probably only in the 5.7 or 5.8 range but not knowing that, being unsure of the rock, and never knowing what it would be like higher up made this climb particularly spicy. 

Plugging gear on some unknown route
in the Wonder Rocks area of J-Tree

From the top of the climb, we spotted a couple of cracks that looked like they might be good routes.  However, when we investigated the first one, it was much lower angle than we expected and we never even found the other one.  For the next couple of hours we hiked through the rock outcrops and looked for climbs.  We solo/aided some short random cracks and finally found a wall with some good short routes.  We went with the one Dave had his eye on first and so he led it.  A few meters up Dave was really questioning the integrity of the rock and so he decided to bail and used gear to walk down.  We went back to the climb I had spotted nearby and I racked up for a short crack climb.

Nearing the crux that I felt was 5.9

The rock quality on my route felt descent and it followed up a double crack system for the first half before going into one crack.  I felt like it was about 5.9, but they seemed to think it was a hard 5.8 or easy 5.9.  I guess your perspective is always different when you're leading. 

That was the last climb I did a J-Tree and when we got back to the campsite, I cooked some quinoa veggie hog jaw.  The campsites occupied by my neighbor friends were emptying out quick and I was on my way too.  It'd been about 10 days since I last showered and only about an hour and a half away, my cousin Sara's fully equiped home awaited.  I said my good byes to everyone still around and headed towards San Diego.  Thanks to all the friendly neighbors in the Hidden Valley campground.