CHAOS thanksgiving at Joshua Tree NP

The thanksgiving holiday in the US is huge, even bigger than Christmas - which probably has something to do with not having to worry about buying any gifts! It is a sort of late Harvest festival and essentially gives thanks to the Indians who showed the early settlers how to grow corn so they wouldn't starve. I am sure there are plenty of native Americans who now think "if only we hadn't been so generous we might still run this country". It is a time for families to get together so with mine so far away - I went with my adopted climbing family (Cal Hiking And Outdoors Society - CHAOS) to Joshua Tree National Park to celebrate the holiday with turkey, rock climbing and beer.

Joshua Tree NP is in Southern California (SoCal as its referred to here), east of Los Angeles. With thanksgiving being the busiest holiday of the year the traffic was as you might imagine horrific and it took us 13 hours from Berkeley, 4 hours of which was just getting out of the bay area! We arrived at around 2am and the following morning after emerging from my tent I was greeted by an awesome sight (photo 2) of Joshua Trees as far as the eye could see (photo 3). Joshua Tree NP is enormous (nearly 800,000 acres) and consists of two desert ecosystems, primarily separated by elevation, that come together in the park. Below 3,000 feet, the Colorado Desert (part of the Sonoran Desert), occupies the eastern half of the park and is dominated by the abundant Creosote Bush. The higher, slightly cooler, and wetter Mojave Desert is the special habitat of the Joshua Tree, which occur extensively throughout the western half of the park. The parks other famous stars are the Road Runner and the Coyote, remember the cartoon? Although sadly we didn't seen of their infamous antics with the ACME explosives!

The climbing in the park is excellent with a mixture of traditional and sport climbing - for those climbers amongst you, with almost all of the 5000 routes being single pitch crags (<30m). The rock is Granite and the friction is quite amazing, reminded me a lot of peak gritstone. We climbed at the "Hall of Horrors" on the first day and were treated to a great sunset (photos 1 and 4). The thanksgiving feast was very much a "pot luck" affair with Kelly (the organiser) cooking a 19lb turkey and the rest of us preparing a real smörgåsbord of side dishes. Preparing my side dish provided some entertainment for my campsite companions as my MSR pressurised liquid stove began leaking/spraying fuel around the table before bursting into flames and setting fire to my hands - no hand hair left but no serious injuries.

On day two we climbed the "Headstone" (photo 5), close to the campsite, and in the "Real Hidden Valley" (photo 6). In the evening, a group of us drove to Palm Springs to clean off in the hot springs - a welcome relief for all those aching muscles. The final day saw us climbing at the "Lost Horse" area followed by far too much booze back at the campsite and a late night game of "texan bottle walking" - those of you at DrOStock may remember something similar.

Laters

Dave