J -Tree journey

We returned from our four and a half day sojourn in Joshua Tree National Park late last night. Our son has been there since December 27, and had urged us to join him. Despite the lack of running water, electricity or any amenity other than outhouses with toilet paper, I think it must take a week or more to really soak up the energy from the place. And after all, it's car camping, you're not out in the back country trying to live off the land; you can go "to town", the tiny Joshua Tree, and get a shower, procure gear at the outdoor shop, or an excellent dinner at the funky but wonderfully welcoming Crossroads Cafe. We took our son and two of his climbing comrades there on Thursday, and I had the most delicious ahi sandwich with a mixed green salad that I've ever tasted, except for maybe the ahi I had at the fish shack in the little strip in South Kihei on Maui.
So we weren't totally roughing it.
However, we slept in our brand new tent, on our Thermarest inflatable mattresses; the first night was probably in the high 20's, and I wore just about every layer I had with me, including a very puffy down jacket that our son insisted we bring, my knit hat and gloves, as I burrowed down into my ancient three quarter length REI down bag from the early 70's, and it stuffed inside a lighter weight polyfill Coccoon bag. I slept better that night than I have in months. All our camp mates slept out under the moon and stars. There were two young guys who are professional musicians, one a violinist, the other a cellist, and a woman who leads Outward Bound expeditions, an interesting kind of desert person.
The following nights I woke up in the wee hours to the sound of serenading coyotes, or perhaps hunting coyotes. There was a sharp scream at the end of one set of howls. The moon was waxing larger and larger, heading towards full by Saturday night. I got out of the sack officially just after dawn every morning, unheard of here at home, and walked through a wash on one of the prettiest trails to an outhouse I've ever trod. There were always a handful of rabbits lurking nervously, and covies of quails that fled in their eccentric way behind rocks or sagebrush, or flushed softly up onto the boulders.
We made filter coffee, mixed up organic instant oatmeal, ate nearly frozen bananas, then figured out where we would head each day. The afternoon we arrived we had enough time to hike out and scramble, although we got a bit off route, to a climbing route called "Loose Lady." It resembled an enormous potato on end, almost vertical, but I was informed it wasn't considered steep. Beloved son lead it, and I managed to get up to the top, despite slipping off at what he'd called "the crux." Imagine having your feet delicately poised on almost invisible edges, then trying to move up somehow...
Subsequent forays into the area around Hidden Valley Campground and beyond provided a variety of wonderful routes. On one formation called Intersection Rock we did a route called "North Overhang", two pitches long, up into a cave and over its roof to the top. To the right of this route was "The Flake," which starts in a chimney, goes up along cracks and a big flake to finish on "easy" slab to top out. I'd never tried a straight chimney with no face holds on it before, and found it difficult, although not impossible. You have to stand up into it, legs locked off fore and aft, get your arms into play, and maneuver upward.
Other routes included in the sampler were "Double Cross" and "Dogleg Crack", on the back of a formation called The Blob. These were purportedly "easy" cracks, particularly the second one, but I had trouble getting good handjams into what was billed as a "perfect" handcrack. Every time someone tells me that a crack is a perfect hand crack, I resign myself to a struggle, since usually our hands are different sizes. But I do admit my jamming technique is inadequate.
We did another "super easy" crack route called "The Bong," and beloved spouse gamely tried it and topped out, his first official climb outside. It was probably 70+ feet long, and he got the hang of hand jamming quickly. He remarked that he had to, since there wasn't any other option.
We headed out to a route called "Coarse and Buggy," which at 11a was the most difficult problem I did. It started right into challenging stemming in a big corner, then provided good handholds in between thin cracks and a relatively easy finish.
We had more thin cracks after a period of wandering in the wilderness while seeking a climbing wall we never found; instead we spent a couple of hours scrambling in boulder strewn gullies. We finally went out to a rock face which had two thin cracks called "The Mels." One I couldn't do all of a piece, the other I did. Little fingertip jams, reaches, kind of tricky sequences of feet and hands, but good fun. We had a fine hike back to our campsite, through an area pretty much deserted and uncrowded.
For our very last route, beloved son led us up a route called "Eye", or "The Cyclops," which ended in a cave which was functioning as a wind tunnel that day, and probably the coldest spot in the entire park. We all got to the top, up a spooky-looking and scooped out wall, full of huge holds of every type. It was beautifully sunny and warm on the backside, and we could walk down, albeit gingerly, at least for us parental units. Dear son sort of dances down the steepest rocks and slabs, while we follow behind. He took us out for a final hike, out toward a place called Barker Dam, which we didn't have enough time to reach, but it was still fantastic walking past all the huge Joshua trees and rock formations.
It was a bit hard to leave. There are thousands of routes in the park, and I climbed, over the course of a few days, what some people do in a day or less. It seemed, despite its size, a fragile place. Evidently there are people who want to build-what the fuck else? - golf courses that would infringe upon the park. I hope to return before the barbarians start scraping away at this amazing corner of the earth.