Sequoia National Park

We entered Sequoia from the south. At the spot this photo was taken, we were still in Three Rivers, CA.

Right off the bat the scenery was terrific.

I'm thinking the snow-capped mountain we could see was Mt. Eisen. Though over 12,000', it isn't the highest peak in the park. That claim to fame goes to Mt. Whitney, which is over 14,000'.

Just 1/4 miles inside the park we saw this beautiful sign and just had to stop for a photo. Seems the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) erected it in 1935 and it was modeled after the face on the old Indian head nickel.

There was also a trail leaving from this turnout. We walked down it a short distance for a view of the river. Along the trail were colorful flowers. These kinda look like Baby Blue Eyes.

I didn't find out the name of these flowers.

We stopped at the Foothills Visitor Center and they had this chart of wildflowers.

Heading on up the road I got to wondering if the stone barrier was a project of the CCC but I forgot to ask at a visitor center.

There's a lot of the stone barrier in the lower park of the park. In the distance you can see Mt Eisen again and also Moro Rock.

The brochure didn't say, but it looks like the road used to go under this rock. Cool!

Another flowering bush I couldn't identify but it looks like the flowers are just past their prime. These are Bush Lupine.

The colorful, flowering bushes/trees in the foothills made the scenery quite lovely.

We stopped at a large turnout on a curve and we looked down to see the road we had just traveled up.

See the car on the road directly under us?

There was a large information panel that told us what we were looking at. Read photo below.

Double click to enlarge.

Moro Rock. The road there was closed but there is a trail up to the top. By coming this early in the spring, we were unable to go to a lot of the park because snow covered the roads and trails.

The road continued to climb and by the time we got to the Giant Forest around 6,000', we were getting into the areas still covered with snow.

It's hard to tell in the photo but the road splits here. The upward half goes between two trees on the right and the downward half goes between two trees on the left.

In front of the Giant Forest Museum at 6,409', is the Sentinal tree. I believe it was around 275' tall.

Course we had to take two photos to get the whole tree photographed.

We learned a lot about Sequoias in the museum.

Time for a walk.

Ahh, this might be a harder walk than I was thinking. At least we didn't have on heels or other shoes unsuitable for walking on snow. Oh well, off we go.

Look at the burned part of this sequoia.

Finally some clear places on the path.
Then it becomes snow-covered again. See the first information panel? The snow is up to the bottom of it. Most of this walk was covered with 2 to 3 feet of snow.

It's amazing that a seed this small can grow something so large! The seeds are about the size and shape of a flake of oatmeal and the pinecones are so small but they contain about 200 seeds each.

Some parts of the outer bark were almost soft and when I tapped on the tree it sounded hollow. Yes the temperature dropped into the low 50's so we had put on extra shirts.

We took a different trail back to the parking lot and we had to cross over this snow-covered bridge. The wood I was supposed to be walking on is about 3' below my feet. There was a narrow, packed snow path across it.
This information panel was very interesting.

This is what the same view looks like today. What a difference!

The information panels all had these decorative pine cones on them.

We continued up the road and just before the parking lot for the General Sherman tree, we saw this coyote. I wondered if he was sick or something since he was hanging around people.

Hey there was even a post office at Sequoia! It was by the Lodgepole Visitor Center. We had passed by the General Sherman tree because there wasn't any place to park.

The Lodgepole Visitor Center was closed so we decided to walk to the nearby campground. Most of it was closed too.

We did see this. Do you know what it is?

It's a bear-proof food storage locker. Bears will tear up your car trying to get in if they smell food or anything they think is food.

Since we visited the day after Easter, bunny rabbits were on everyones mind. I suppose that's why this "snowman" has bunny ears.

Then we went back down to the General Sherman Tree and found a parking spot. A path has been cut through this fallen sequoia.

No this isn't the General Sherman but it's pretty impressive.

The trail passed between these two giants.

Finally the General Sherman. It's the one in the middle of the photo. It's claim to fame as the largest tree in the world comes from the volume of its trunk. A few other tree trunks are bigger around. Some trees are taller But no other tree has more wood in its trunk than the General Sherman.
Of course we had to go to the base of the tree for the traditional photo but the tree is so large you can hardly see me.
Just because the General Sherman is the largest sequoia around, it doesn't meet it is the oldest. It is 1,000 years younger than the oldest know sequoia. It just grew in a prime location. One sequoia grew in a poor location and the base of it was only about the size of a penny after 100 years!

The Sherman Tree's top is dead so it won't get any taller but its volume keep increasing because the truck gets bigger around. Each year the truck grows wider, adding enough wood to equal a good-sized tree. The tree is presently 109' around at the base.

At another spot in the trail, it was possible to get a photo of the whole tree at once.

Going back down the road, we stopped at some of the turnouts in the foothills for photos of these yucca growing along the road.

They were so pretty I couldn't stop at just one photo so I have several.

Of course the colorful, blooming trees on the hillsides don't show up as well in the photos as they did in person but it's still a pretty view.

More Bush Lupine.

I know, I could have picked just one... but they were pretty!

Back down in Three Rivers, we crossed over this old bridge.

Here's a shot upstream. This is the same river that passes by the campground we are staying at. The temperature at Three Rivers was 76°. Twenty-four degrees higher than at Lodgepole.

Twentynine Palms Murals

In the town of Twentynine Palms, CA, there are around 20 murals painted on the sides of buildings. Most depict the history of the area.

This one is just a beautiful desert scene.

Joshua Tree National Park

The Joshua Tree is a member of the lily family.

Neither tree nor cactus, the Joshua Tree was named by Mormon pioneers who thought its arms resembled Joshua beckoning them to the promised land.

Some of the hills and small mountains in the park look like piles of loose rocks.

Nolan loved this overhanging boulder at one of the rest stops. People were climbing the opposite face of the rock.

These gigantic rocks are the result of molten lava that oozed up toward the surface and then cooled. Over time this monzogranite developed a system of rectangular joints then they were exposed when flash floods washed away the ground surface that covered them.

I just loved all the interesting shapes.

This is Saddle Rock and it is much larger than it looks in this photo. Read all about it in the following photo.

Double click to enlarge. I learned some interesting facts about climbing at Joshua Tree National Park. It is one of the most popular rock climbing areas in the world and there are 4,500 recognized climbing routes throughout the park!

We decided to got for a short hike and this is the trail we took.

We saw these flowers all along the part of the trail that followed a wash. See how tiny they are? I think they are Desert Sunflowers.

We also saw these flowers in the wash. They aren't much larger than the yellow ones. They are called Chia.

Just one of the interesting rock formations on the route.

We saw this formation and Nolan called it the Dog House so I sent him off to test it out. Yep, stuck in the dog house again. He was bummed because we were unable to get the internet working the afternoon before.

I told him the niche looked more like a religious place so he began to pray for the Internet to start working.

A view of skull Rock from across the road. Lots of people around it.

More interesting flowers but the photo is extremely blurred. I was trying to show that a yellow and a red flower came off of each stem. Very different. They are called Desert Rock Pea. Next is a better picture.

Well I didn't see it at first but Nolan was dead on when he said this formation in Jumbo Rocks Campground looked like an elephant. Can you see it? It even has the tip of the trunk sticking up in front if it. The eyes are bushes.

I believe I read at the Oasis Visitor Center that of the 158 fan palm oasises in North America, five are in Joshua Tree National Park. Probably the most accessible is the Oasis of Mara at the Oasis Visitor Center. Double click to enlarge.
Here's a photo of the oasis from behind the visitor center. The oasis has quite the history of being the stopping place for water because it used to come to the surface here.
Hey, Beaver tail prickly pear starting to bloom. I bet they are really pretty when the flowers are fully open.
Just a lonely fan palm off by itself.
See following photo for a view of Maria Whalton grave.

Maria Whalton's grave is being overtaken by this tree.
This beautiful flower is a California Buckwheat that I saw along the Skull Rock trail but we didn't know it's name until we saw a huge bush of it at the visitor center.

Nolan saw some Gamble's Quail run across the sidewalk at the oasis but he wasn't fast enough to get a good photo. This is a photo I took by Casa Grande.

As we headed south through the park we passed through an area where lots of chola cactus grew. It was called the Cholla Cactus Garden. Then we saw an area where lots of ocotillo grew. We've see them dry and brown all winter but these are green and starting to bloom.

In the sandy ditches along the road, we would occasionally see these plants with their big white flowers. I don't know what they are called.

Windmills of San Gorgonio Pass

The largest windmill farm I have ever seen is along I-10 just west of Palm Springs, CA. Every time I have been through this area it has been windy.

That's because I-10 cuts through San Gorgonio Pass el. 2,600 ft (790 m) at this point and all the wind funnels through this spot. The San Gorgonio Pass runs between the San Bernardino Mountains on the north and the San Jacinto Mountains to the south. Like the Cajon Pass to the northwest, it was also created by the San Andreas Fault.
Look at these photos and you can see the different types of windmills that have been put up through the years.

The San Gorgonio Pass provides the main link between the Los Angeles Basin and the Coachella Valley and points further east.
The pass itself is not as steep as the Cajon Pass or the Tejon Pass (the Grapevine), but it is still one of the deepest mountain passes in the 48 contiguous states, with the mountains to either side rising almost 9,000 ft (2,700 m) above the pass.

When I was driving motorhomes four years ago, I drove through all these passes but the San Gorgonio is the one I went through the most.