While in the SF bay area for the holidays, I found myself lacking on activities to fill the time. Instead, I met up with Katie and we drove off to Big Basin State Park where we hiked the Berry Creek Falls Loop Trail. This park is nestled in the mountains above Santa Cruz and provides some great wilderness amongst the redwood trees and fog. It rained on us a bit while we were there, but it gave the place an even more eerie feel. 

In all the, the trail was fairly mellow, with some gradual ups and downs, and some flowing waterfalls nestled amongst the turns in the trail. It was like having my own little backyard version of Olympic National Park in WA, except with some funny-looking banana slugs instead of elk. 

Around summer of 2009 is when Aaron proposed the grand idea of doing all national parks by age 40. I instantly was in love with this idea, and decided that if I have any medium to long term life goals, that was a feasible one. A random weekend in December that year was a perfect opportunity to begin on the path to completing it, since I needed to average 3 new parks per year if I wanted to reach all 58. We took the opportunity to drive the short 3 hours our to Joshua Tree that up until my quest began, I knew nothing about. It turned out to be a beautiful and brilliant place that can be very pleasant in the winter and spring, and due to it's low visitation is generally "empty" if you go during the right time of year. December turned out to be one of those times. We stayed at White Tank campground, in the middle of the park, and had a freezing but quiet night among the rocky outcroppings of this Joshua Tree-filled desert. 

The next morning we headed further south toward the main hike of the weekend, Lost Palms Oasis, approximately 4 miles round trip. We started out of Cottonwood Oasis trail, headed to the main oasis with a few dense pockets of palms in the canyon, and on the way out passed by the trailhead to Mastodon Peak, which we decided to take as a short detour for great views.

We continued back north to White Tank campground which holds the trailhead for Arch Rock Nature Trail. It should have been a 1 mile loop, but took a bit longer due to our desire to explore and boulder hop among the impressively photogenic formations. After the arch, we continued to another boulder formation, Split Rock, where we hiked the 2 mile loop and and spotted the aptly-named Tulip rock. 

After some more exploring and quick 1 mile loop nature hikes, we went back to the campground and returned the next day to Keys View, with some impressive views to the west and south, overlooking the Salton Sea and the San Jacinto mountains past it. On the way back, we took a 3 mile hike through Lost Horse Mountain area to the Lost Horse mine, and then explored a few rock formation stops before heading back home after a short but intriguing 36 hour taste of Joshua Tree.

IMO, Death Valley is the most underrated national park I have ever been to. It is the largest outside of Alaska, and covers more different topographies than anywhere I have seen, at least out of 20 so far. This was our first trip to the park, and despite the 5-6 hour drive each way, we have been there at least four times since, and still have barely repeated any hikes. You are able to go to the lowest point in the western hemisphere at less than -200 feet and then up to 11000 feet in only a few hours. You can see sand dunes, craters, marbled canyons, and waterfalls in the same day. It's truly breathtaking, and almost every time we are there, the place feels deserted. 


Each day of this trip report can be used as a separate set of activities, as they are all grouped geographically.

Friday: The major attractions south of Furnace Creek

1. Golden Canyon Interpretive Trail w/ Gower Gulch loop: 4.0 mi RT. This was the first hike, and by far the most exposed to heat and sun. The canyon walls were interesting, and there is a side trip about 1.0 mi in that leads 0.25 mi to the "red cathedral" with really tall walls and and nice colors. Towards 3.0 mi or so, there are a lot of old mines in the hillsides, where they reach down to within 6 feet of the wash. One of them that was larger, sturdy and actually went through a hill 20 ft to the other side, and had a junction that went further in as well. If you end up doing this trail, make sure to take a map or GPS as some of the trail signs were literally torn out of their holes and scattered along the wash. 

2. Natural Bridge Canyon: 1.5 mi RT to natural bridge. This was neat to see the giant natural bridge, but only do it if you feel like you have plenty of time. There is not much else to see aside from it and some dry falls, the path is uphill and sandy/gravelly, and the dirt road access is one of the more severe ones.

3. Devil's Golf Course: Nice little detour along a dirt road to some interesting salt formations.

4. Badwater EL -282 ft.: Took the short walk into the salt flats, and if you bear right you can find formations that are incredibly well preserved and untouched by tourists. I never would have thought you could have so much fun with macro settings and a piece of salt. Look closely at the photo of the hillside and you'll see the sign indicating where sea level is....

5. Artist's Palette 1-way drive: Desert beauty and fun in many places. Has pulloffs where you can get shots of green, orange, purple, white, and black boulders all next to each other. Worth the 30 minute drive.

6. Dante's View: Had 40 minutes to sunset, so drove all the way over to this lookout point that is actually directly above Badwater on a huge cliff, and provided an incredible view of the valley. Unfortunately the sunset had very little cloud interference to make it truly spectacular.

Saturday: Heading North from Furnace Creek.

Day 1 

Devil's Postpile and Rainbow Falls ~ 5.5 miles. Great hike and well worth it to a unique geological feature, with hexagonal columns up to 60 feet tall. Rainbow falls, albeit not unique was still a very impressive waterfall at 101 feet from base to top of falls. 

Mono Lake South Tufa Area and Panum Crater Plug Trail ~ 2 miles.The tufa (stalagmite-resembling towers of salt) form at the bottom of Mono lake due to the extremely high salinity. This area of the lake has been exposed due to slowly drying up levels of water, leaving these interesting formations exposed. Also visible in this area are the millions of alkali flies that live along the edges of the lake. Yes, that picture of "black" shoreline is actually a bed of flies. Apparently, one of the issues of the past has been people removing pieces of Tufa, hence the very interesting sign. 

After the tufa, we went on to Panum Crater to explore the remains of an old volcanic eruption. Two very interesting types of rock formed under volcanic conditions are Obsidian and Pumice. This was a great opportunity to appear to be 10x stronger than in reality with the amazingly lightweight Pumice that was found everywhere. 

Black Point Hike ~ 3 miles RT, Looking for some slot canyons and fissures in the plateau near Mono Lake, but hard to find the fissures as the instructional sheet of paper from the visitor's center had very poorly designed instructions. They recommended circling the south side of a sandy hill in order to slowly walk up in a switchback fashion. I would suggest going straight up to the peak (perpendicular to the road), and then you can see the fissures from the top. However, the roundabout manner at least allowed us to meet a reptile friend. . They were pretty incredible slot canyons between 1 and 4 feet wide, 10 to 50 feet tall, and in some cases hundreds of feet long. Some of them started and ended in the plateau---as in they did not end at an open cliff. Very enjoyable day hike if you can find them. It was nearing dusk as we finished, and we got treated with a sunset on the way back to the car. 

Day 2

Saddlebag and 20 Lakes Basin Loop Hike ~ 6 miles in a loop at 10000 feet around a number of lakes just north of CA 120, Tioga Pass Rd. You can make it a couple miles longer by not taking the ferry across the largest of the lakes- Saddlebag. Great examples of alpine scenery. 

Thursday night we drove up to Rose Valley campground in the southern section (Ojai Ranger District) of Los Padres NF. We didn’t arrive until 11 pm, mainly because the last 1.5 hours were marked with extremely dense fog limiting us to 15 mph at best along an old but paved road going through a few “flooded” low points. Aaron and Alex arrived later that night, and we drowsily greeted them through the tent.

Friday I woke early due to traffic of rock quarry dump trucks traveling through the campground. I dressed and did a little quick geocaching before returning to the tents and gathering the troops to pack and drive to the Matilija TH. We didn’t reach it until 10am, and left quickly, passing by some large “ranch” gates and through some private ranches in which the owners have graciously granted limited access to the government NF lands beyond.

            While stopping for a geocache between the ranchlands, we were approached by two large dogs, Jenga and Eva as we later learned they were named. At first we were cautious, but they soon turned out to be very friendly. Oddly, they started following us, and kept following even when we left all the ranches. We continued to find geocaches (and a rattlesnake) along the hike through meadows to the Matilija river, and the dogs never stopped following. Once we got to the river we found a beautiful picnic spot and ate lunch, with the dogs eyeing us hungrily. Not knowing what to give them, we declined to feed them and continued up the river.

            There is no defined trail for the Matilija canyon since the canyon walls get very tight at times and any semblance of a trail would be washed out by the spring river flows, but as it was the summer, we were able to hop our way upriver along rocks for the next 2 to 3 miles (dogs running and splashing us on the way). As we got closer and closer we saw lots of fish and we were glad to have brought poles and tackle, and as the day wore on, we began to think we should just find the next best spot and stop. However, we then began walking up a very thin deer trail along the canyon to bypass a large pool and slickrock waterslide, and after crossing located an incredible campsite with stone furniture. I have seen many “stone” campsites built by visitors, but to this day it has remained one of the best. There was a large stone slab for a table, with a circular bench seat around most of it, and an oven/firepit complete with a 4 foot tall stone windshield. There were two perfect level areas for tents as well, with lots of shade all around. Of course we set up camp here, started to develop the site, gathered an incredible supply of firewood, and did a little fishing before dinner, campfire, and sleep. Now, you may be wondering about Jenga and Eva. It was that evening we found out from other backpackers their names, and that they were ranch dogs, and very friendly. We had seen the latter, but were surprised they slept outside our tents watching over the valley, and only barked a few times throughout the night (protecting our precious bearcans from black bears).

            Saturday we slept in after multiple groups passed our site, extremely disappointed that this local secret was already taken, and we eventually got on our daypacks in order to make our way the last bit upriver. We located the first waterfall easily, found a group picnicking in the best spot, and climbed our way past the waterfall along some Class 2/3 to the river above. It was gorgeous and untouched up there, and while Marie and I scrambled to the vista overlooking the canyon, Aaron and Alex bushwhacked the river farther up. We returned down the waterfall to our awaiting canine companions and hiked with them back to the main canyon and up to Matilija falls, the site of our most fantasized geocache. It was here that we got wet multiple times before reaching the waterfall. It was certainly interesting. Aaron and I stripped down to bathing suits in order to prepare for the cache attempt, and it is here that I must give an appropriate description of the cache:

           After hiking in ~6 miles to Matilija falls from the TH, and crossing the river many times, without a trail, you eventually reach the falls. Next you must hug a stone shelf as far as possible around the right hand side of a deep pool without falling in (as there are no routes to climb up the face from the pool). Then you must swim through the upper pool, under the waterfall, and up a moss-covered slickrock with two extremely poorly-placed natural footholds, until you reach the area under the “nose” of the waterfall. As we found out, it is very cold there, and in the shade, especially when you only have bathing suits on. 

            We reached this point, but could not find a geocache anywhere after ten freezing minutes of searching every handhold and crevice we could. After finding one possible location that then turned out to be a bird nest with a live (and angry) bird staring at us, we decided to swim back out of the pool and into the sun, where we laid out on the rock. However, Aaron and I are both stubborn and we couldn’t turn back without finding the cache, so I convinced him to go back in with me to look for it once more. Less than 5 seconds into getting up into the “nose” again, I began swearing and realized it was a horrible idea.

            Normally this is the part of the story where I tell you about how perseverance prevails and we located an incredible geocache in the most amazing location. Sadly, this was not the case. Ten frozen minutes later, after Aaron climbed 15 feet up into the top of the cavern, and I blindly placed my hand into every dark hole I could find, we returned to our clothing cold and defeated. It later turned out that others couldn’t find anything either and the cache had most likely washed away.

            That is the saga of the Matilija falls geocache, but we continued back to the campsite, had a great dinner and campfire, and slept soundly with Jenga and Eva protecting us again.

            Sunday was a simple day of hiking out, and reattempting some missed geocaches from the way in. We met lots of dayhikers as we got closer, and eventually reached the ranches again. It was here that the dogs finally left us, for the first time in 48 hours. We reached the TH shortly thereafter and parted on our separate ways after completing a great weekend adventure.

The old Mojave Road was the southernmost route used to cross to the west coast by missionaries, the military, and various other groups, starting with Juan Batista de Anza's expedition in 1776. It is a 138 mile trail across the Mojave National Preserve from the Colorado river (and Nevada border) to Afton canyon, just west of Baker, CA (familiar to those Angelinos who make the weekend pilgrimage to Vegas). It crosses through historic forts, near stalactite-filled caverns, past many petroglyphs, lava tubes, cinder cones, early desert settler relics, and large canyons, all along some rough 4x4 roads. If you are interested in repeating this trip, I recommend saving these coordinates on Dirtopia at a minimum, and suggest purchasing Adler Publishing's California Trails - Desert Region book, which has integrated trail directions, GPS coordinates, and lots of information on the various areas you pass through. 

For this trip, we rented a classic 2 door Jeep Wrangler (this was before the FJ Cruiser, and this rental provided me with more reasons of why I didn't want a Jeep as my main car). We left on a Friday late morning and reached the starting point of Needles, CA with enough time to set up our tent at a KOA, grab some dinner and go to sleep. Saturday we began the drive, crossed over the Colorado River, and headed west into the Mojave NP, where we visited Fort Piute and Piute Spring, an old army base with many Native American petroglyphs. There was a Jeep meetup going on at the time, which led us to believe that the road was going to be much busier than expected, but it turned out that everyone only went to the main destinations and didn't travel the Old road, which provided for a much more pleasant trip.

From the Fort, we travelled west over an extremely rough and rocky pass, surprised that we didn't get a flat tire. Unfortunately, being our first offroading and backroad navigating experience, we wound up a few miles too far north, and were skirting a gorgeous canyon in Lanfair Valley before reaching a set of rough stadium jumps and sharp terrain, which did give us a flat tire! After swapping out the spare, we turned around, found the right trail, and at the intersection of Lanfair Valley Road, beared south to reach the nearest tire shop, which turned out to be many miles away, on the south side of I-40, in a "town" called Essex. The town was completely run down with the exception of a post office and a mechanics garage that charged a whopping $5 to fix our flat. 

A couple hours behind, but back on track, we return to the Old Mojave Road where we left off, and head west to Black Canyon Rd, where we spend a night at Mid Hills Campground after viewing one of the most incredible desert sunsets that I have set my eyes on. Nights got fairly cold here, and the fire was a very welcome addition to the evening.

We awoke on Sunday for an adventure-filled day, starting with a ranger-led tour of the Mitchell Caverns State Natural Preserve, within the Providence Mountains SRA. These are some fun little caverns with well preserved formations, sitting in the middle of the Mojave National Preserve. It is also accessible via paved road from I-40, and thus recommended even if you are just passing through.

Our first trip together ever was a short 2 night/ 2 day car camping trip to Sequoia and King's Canyon National Parks in 2008. We arrived the first night after a long, traffic-filled drive out of Los Angeles and just in time for a nice campfire at Dorst Creek campground, in the group section. 

This campfire was particularly memorable because it taught me a life lesson about campfire safety. I am always used to fully extinguishing campfires before I go to bed, and I attempted to do the same on this particular evening. Slowly dousing the fire with water from a pot was a bad idea, as some pooled on top of a log, dumped at once into the hot coals, and turned into a burst of steam that funneled underneath a burned out hollow of a larger log and straight towrd my pouring hand (despite being a few feet above and away from the actual fire). This resulted in a 2nd degree burn that certainly took some of the enjoyment out of the rest of the weekend. I treated it the best I could, and eventually fell asleep.

We awoke the next morning and made the long but beautiful drive down the scenic Generals Highway, over to the King's Canyon Scenic Byway, and along the steep canyon walls to Road's End. It was here that we began the trail to Mist Falls. This first trip was plagued with problems here though, as the high temperatures of ~85F slowed us down, and we ended up taking the wrong trail towards Bubbs Creek instead of the Rae Lakes loop. We went up easily 4 miles, realized we were on the wrong trail, and decided it was too late to attempt to correct. Instead, we found a nice spot of pools and mini-falls to call our destination.

We then headed back to the trailhead where we met up with a coworker (she had stayed behind with her 6-month-old). The trailhead turned out to be a hotspot for cooling off in the creek, and had some very deep spots--perfect for jumping off of boulders and getting an exercise by trying to swim upstream. The day was rounded out with a detour on the way back to the General Grant store, where we satisfied our collective ice cream cravings. 

Sunday our groups separated and Marie and I broke off to cover as much of the Sequoia NP as possible, given that it was my first time there. We began by heading over to do a quick ascent of Little Baldy and snapped some great panoramic views of the mountains and terrain. 

This was followed by a quick hike of the tourist-packed Moro Rock, which had incredible views not very different from Little Baldy, but because of accessibility was at least 100x more crowded. What truly impressed us were the 797 steps carved into the rock which led to the lookout point. The magnificence of this CCC project from 1931 is highlighted in the way the path is carved into the natural contours and crevices of the Moro Rock formation.  We followed this tourist attraction with another nearby-- the drive through fallen Sequoia tree. This acted as a teaser for our final hike of the trip, the General Sherman tree loop, showcasing the General Sherman tree, the largest tree on Earth by volume and mass. 

Following this, we began the drive back to Los Angeles and arrived without incident. In all, it was a great trip that showed us many of the touristy highlights that Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks have to offer.