The Hike to the Crystal Palace

Talk about something unexpected.

We headed back to Joshua Tree National Park, after saying goodbye to our friends at the Twentynine Palms RV Resort. We wanted to stay in the White Tank campground (named for the type of rock that surrounds the area), and thought that since we would be arriving on Sunday, when people would be leaving after the weekend, that we might get lucky and get a spot. There are only 15 in this campground, and rigs over 25 feet aren’t allowed (not enough space to maneuver). But it looked really nice, with sites nestled among the huge boulders that occupy a lot of the space in the middle part of the park.

And we got a great spot. Fairly isolated, and with terrific views out each window. And guess who we ran into in the parking lot? Our new friends from Twentynine Palms who had just happened to stop here to take the short nature walk.

Since the day was half over, and since we would be taking a longer hike the next day, we scouted around for something easy, around three miles. Up the road a bit from our campground we had noticed a trailhead for something labeled Twin Tanks. From what we read, we knew they were man-made water tanks, but that’s all we knew when we headed out.

It was an off-trail “hike,” more of a scramble at times, over big boulders. Really beautiful, and fun. Other than “water tanks” we had no idea what we were looking for, or how to even find them, except to head west for about a mile. That seemed more doable in the flat desert where we started than in the boulders where we ended up.

After walking and scrambling for about a mile, Vicky noticed a white dome on a rock, about ¼ mile away. We thought it couldn’t be natural because it looked so out of place. And almost strange. We assumed it must be one of the water towers, although it seemed to glisten in the sun, which didn’t make sense. We headed for it (not directly, but up, down, and around huge boulders, sometimes backtracking toward it).

This was about our first spotting of the white dome. Can you see it? It won't be easy in this photo. Look at the left side of the bush in the foreground, and then go straight up just a bit less than halfway to the top of the ridge:

We are closer now. I'm sure you can see it:

When we finally got close enough, we found that among this huge pile of White Tank Granite boulders, stretching for miles, was this beautiful castle of white quartz at the top of this particular ridge.

Just in this one place, with a few large quartz rocks that had were 30 feet below the castle that had obviously rolled down from this spot long ago.

How, why, we would like to know. What geological explanation is there for this quartz castle high on top of a ridge in a boulder field? What an exciting discovery! It reminded me of a scene from Lord of the Rings—as if it was a remnant of a long-ago civilization, just as Joshua Tree is, as one of the signs there said, the remnant of a long-ago climate.

Obviously the white dome was not, as we had thought, the water tank. It was something much more wonderful.

But down below it we spotted what appeared to be a dam. We scrambled to it, to find that it, indeed, was a dam. We later learned from a hiking book that this was one of the two tanks. The dam formed a tank of water because of the rocks on the sides of it.

It was unlike anything either of us had ever done. It was very safe, if one is careful, because there were not sheer rock faces. And even though there was no trail, it was clear which direction we needed to return--east. We had marked a spot high upon a mountain on the ridge east of us, and headed there on our way out. We also had our compass.

The next day we did a more traditional hike/walk through the desert. It was fun, but not spectacular (boy, are we getting spoiled). Nine miles. My foot held up well.

Here I am removing stones from my shoes. This is a common occurrence at Joshua Tree:

When we returned to camp we did some cleaning and maintenance. I installed the final running light that was not working, so now they all work and when we drive along we are all lit up and look so cool. (as an aside, people like our camper—it looks different from any others, and from the outside looks actually pretty good; we get compliments all of the time).

Vicky had too much fun with this to omit mentioning it. I had taken the leggings off of my hiking shorts during the hike. I hate trying to put them back on, never being sure which is the right and which is the left. I have finally taken to putting them in, respectively, my right and left pockets to help me with this arduous task. But these new pants Vicky got me for my birthday have another wrinkle—they zip completely up the side. This means that what I’m left with is two zippers on each leg. It is hopeless:

p.s. Vicky has our solar-powered bird light sitting on our picnic table, getting charged up. She hopes it will light up tonight. We’ll see. I hope she’s not too disappointed if it doesn’t work. We may end up giving it away (first come, first served. Send us an email.) like we did our microwave today. We got tired of hauling it around, and had broken the plate that rotates in it. And we only used it a couple of times when we could have used the oven just as easily, so it is useless weight. I just walked through a grocery store parking lot in Twentynine Palms until I saw a family that was driving an old car and asked if they would like it. They were happy, and now we have more room, and are lighter by 20 pounds, the significance of which I will explain in another post.

Now, as to her other prize, the one that had some use—the gift certificate for 50 cents off of each gallon of propane. Vicky forgot to use it. You read that right. I was at the truck where the man was filling the tank, and Vicky took the receipt he made out into the office to pay. I went to drive out and noticed the certificate still sitting in the truck, so immediately ran it into the office. Too late. “I thought YOU had told them, she said!” Jeez. It wasn’t my prize, it was hers, right? You agree with me, don’t you? I’ll tell Vicky. VIIIIICKKKKYYYY---everyone agrees with me!

That’s OK. We didn’t need that dollar we would have saved nearly as much as we need to keep certificate to enjoy later.

BTW: Sometime I will write more about this. But we believe that even with our gasoline for our truck that we are using less energy than we do at home. We figured we had used our propane for lights, heating, and cooking at 14 camping sites since we last had the tank filled. We used only 2.6 gallons. And we know we spend less money. National Parks are the key--$5 per night for us Golden Agers.

That night we watched a movie. I had brought several on the computer, but we have found that we don’t do very much movie watching, usually being so tired at the end of a day that we just crash, and sleep oh so well. Anyway, before we turned in, Vicky and I looked out to find that her solar-powered bird light was working! Yeah! Boo! Now we have to keep it, don’t we?