Feeding the soul in Joshua Tree National Park
Southern California desert full of wildlife and wonder
COACHELLA VALLEY, CALIF.— In some ways, the drive out to that desolate place could be anywhere in America, strip malls and car dealerships and two-level drive-up-to-the-door motels strung all along Interstate 5. But contradicting the heavy development on both sides of this freeway, Captain Ron tells me it isn’t so — that this is indeed a very special place.
Rolling east out of glamorous Palm Springs, we flow with eight lanes of traffic through the Coachella Valley.
“Captain” Ron Chang, a guide with Big Wheel Tours, points out the driver’s side window at a line of mountains, just beyond the sprawl, tracing the San Andreas Fault with his finger.
But he says it’s more than seismic, that there, just beyond that ridge, lies a truly great wilderness.
“You can go hiking back in there and not see a soul, in the real desert,” he says, with anticipation. “And then you come around a corner and find a lush oasis filled with California date palms. It’s just beautiful.”
Together with Chang and a couple other guests, I’m heading on an adventure tour deep into the heart of the Southern California desert — a land of contradictions.
Here, in one of the most densely populated parts of the country, lies a primal wilderness big enough to swallow you whole. I’m headed for Joshua Tree National Park, a place with two different deserts (the Sonora and the Mojave), covering more than 3,000 square kilometres — about the size of Rhode Island.
Exiting the freeway, Chang swings us north, across an overpass, catching a blue-shimmer glimpse of the Salton Sea to the southeast. The traffic almost immediately dwindles to a trickle as we merge onto a small twolane road headed straight into the mountains, crossing into a series of foothills and across the famous fault.
Noting that these hills were actually created by the coming together of the continental plates, Chang adds that this area experiences as many as 100 earthquakes every month. “You only actually feel a couple. They’re small, but they get your attention.”
Passing into the national park and continuing toward the Oro Copia Mountains (named by hopeful, but ultimately mostly unsuccessful gold miners), we peer out the windows of our sturdy jeep in search of wildlife.
Despite the extremely dry and harsh conditions (the area gets as little as five inches of rain annually — and then gets it often almost all at once, causing flash floods) everything from bighorn sheep to jackrabbits to mule deer and even tortoises make this their home.
Even the trees have a story — Chang points out the “smoke tree,” which can drop its roots 46 metres below the surface to find water and stay stable during a flood. “It even grows its own sunscreen — and survives the 120-degree days here very well.”
Chang suddenly pumps the brakes and swings the jeep into a K-turn, announcing a wildlife sighting with a twinge of excitement in his voice. A big snake? A meandering tortoise? No — a tarantula.
Parking on the shoulder, we hop out and snap a few close-up photos of the hairy spider as it makes its way across an empty two lanes of sunbaked park road. “It’s a little venomous — if he bites you, it’ll swell, but it won’t kill you,” Chang reassures us.
Just around the corner, we park in a small lot, pulling together small packs for what, we’re told, will be a simple, small hike.
Descending down the Lost Oasis Trail, we pass — as promised — an oasis of huge, furry date palms fed by a tiny, hidden spring, then ascend into a canyon filled with mesquite and cacti, Chang pointing out a grinding bowl bored into the stone by the Cahuilla people, using it for some 1,400 years to split seeds.
“They would also use the cacti as crock pots,” he adds. “They would put their meats inside, and let the sun slow cook it.”
We decide as a group to go beyond the original scope of the hike, making a push to summit a modest eminence called Mastodon Peak. As I huff and puff up steps hewn into the stone, Chang says he even comes out here on his days off, grabbing a book and soaking up the sun.
“I never get tired of it. Getting close to nature, it’s good for the soul,” he says, with unmasked satisfaction.
Eventually the path begins to level off, and, out of the shelter of the canyon, we lean into the gusts of wind that whistle across the desert. We view a rock that, if you squint a bit and use your imagination, looks a bit like the Buddha, then carry on around a bend, arriving at an abandoned gold mine that proved a modest success in the-19th century before the land shifted and the seam was gone forever.
Moments later we’re headed back down into the canyon, getting momentarily turned around as our guide seeks out — and finds, a few minutes later — a somewhat unfa- miliar shortcut.
Soon enough we’re back in the jeep and out on the two-lane, headed inexorably for the interstate. But I take one last moment of peace, quietly gazing out the window, imagining the tarantulas in their holes and the rumble of an earthquake somewhere down there, feeding my soul, just a little bit, before rejoining the freeway. Tim Johnson was a guest of Visit California, which did not review or approve this story.