Joshua Tree: White Tank Campground: Climb to the top of the hill

We are so very efficient.  Brag.

This morning we had our breakfast, stored everything, put the camper on the pickup, emptied gray water at the dump station, restocked groceries, bought propane and gasoline, drove to our campground (White Tank), and removed the camper from the pickup--all before 11:00 a.m. 

And you know what?   We got the same spot we had here last year, one we loved, and the one where the photo was taken that is on our blog.  But this time we can stay two weeks if we want to because we can drive the pickup all over Joshua Tree to trails we want to take, and there are so many that we are having difficulty choosing.  Last year we couldn’t remove the camper so were limited to hiking around this campground, and there aren’t many established trails here.

Since we had done three 8-mile hikes on consecutive days, we felt we should take it a bit easier today, which coincided with needing to move camp so that was fine.  We decided we would stay under four miles today, and so just headed off from the campground.  About a mile away we saw a ridge heading up the hill that is behind our campground, so decided to take it a ways.

Well, we took it “a ways” and then another “ways” and then another “ways” and then decided “hey, let’s see if we can make it to the top!”  

And we did!  What a fantastic hike!  

One of the things we love about hiking in the Southwest is that we can create our own trails, safely.

When we got to the top we discovered, not surprisingly, that we were not the first people to have made it there, and that hikers who had made it there had built cairns to celebrate.

So, Vicky built us a cairn.  

See it?  It ‘s the tallest one.  Nobody ever said Vicky wasn’t competitive.

You can see our camper, barely, through the two boulders in the exact center of the photo. 

Back at camp.  Here is a photo of me looking at the top of the hill behind us.  You can see where we were through the same two big rocks we could see at the top.  

A great start to our camping here.