Southern california — Nikon F: The Start

When I set out on vacation this year, I had intended on shooting everything solely on film, but at the last minute I decided to also pack a digital camera with my one lens that would cover any length I might need. Even though it’s an objectively “okayish” lens I figured I wouldn’t really need it since I was going to be taking amazing photos on film. I’m fortunate I did. Two of the first three rolls did not turn out. I don’t have any proof, but I am going to assume the high heat and moving between the outdoors and getting into an air-conditioned car caused it. The rest of my photos turned out for the trip, but these ones were lost to the 35mm altar of sacrifice. This post and photos will be fully digital, but I’ll be saving these for a future blog post about learning from my mistakes. Should be a good time to reflect on everything I’ve learned.

Joshua tree is an amazing place. I’ve wanted to visit for a while now, but it’s so far south in California and honestly there’s not much around to do outside the park, so I just wrote it off as a maybe someday if I’m driving within an hour of the entrance. Most people I’ve talked with only know Joshua Tree because of the U2 album with the same name. the cover of that album was shot at Zabriskie Point in Death Valley. The art director did scout several places in Joshua Tree and Twentynine Palms, but the focus ended up being the Joshua Tree itself, which is found abundantly throughout Southern California. It’s a super cool plant, but the highlights of the park have nothing to do with the plant itself for me.

As I mentioned, the main parts of the park are much smaller than other popular parks we’ve been too. I didn’t expect it to be the size of something like Yellowstone, but we were able to see most of the highlights by early afternoon. If you need to prioritize one hike for this park, the High View trail is amazing. It’s outside the park entrance, just past one of their campgrounds and it involves about a quarter mile of “off roading” that can still be managed by even a compact car. The trail itself is only about 1.3 meandering miles, taking you up to an overlook to see the desert valley and snow-covered peaks in the distance. We were warned to keep an eye out for rattlesnakes by the park employees, and fortunately we did not see any. Pro Tip: if you plan to make this trip, hike the trail counterclockwise. We did the loop, and the views are enough to keep you going. On the downslope, not so much. It’s still lovely but I don’t look around as much on the way down as I do on the way up.

The rest of the hikes and activities are either much shorter and easily accessed or much longer and we were not prepared to be on long hikes in the heat. The Keys Viewpoint was worth the trip itself. Getting out there from the main loop was a little over five miles drive, packed in on both sides by large Joshua Trees. But the overlook of the Coachella Valley was sublime. Even through the haze we could see for miles. The stark difference of being in Palm Springs, where civilization has been packed to beyond reasonable, and then standing above a valley with no sign of life for dozens of miles only a few hours away was very telling of the California experience.

When we made it back to the main trail, there was a pretty big change from the west side of the park. Where we had grown accustomed to seeing lots of plants and small wildlife, the further east we went it got more and more rocky. Most of the rest of the park was interesting rock formations: Oyster Bar looked like oysters coming out of the ground, Skull Rock looked like a human skull from a certain angle and Split Rock was as you might guess - a giant split rock.

If we ever go back there are some longer hikes I would like to do, but would need to be in the cooler off-season. Geology Tour Road was closed for a wildfire while we were there, and it was newsworthy enough to make me want to go see what is down there. Overall, this was probably the best start to a National Parks trip we’ve had thus far. “Don’t Die today” signs are everywhere here and battling dehydration could be a problem if we spent too long in the park or attempted any of the longer hikes. I feel like we got our day’s worth of value. One note to keep in mind, there are two visitor centers, and both are outside the park in case you need to stop and get souvenirs or use a civilized rest room.

Travel Blog 2023 #2: Joshua Tree