Water Again?!?
No way, I still don’t believe it, the deserts aren’t supposed to have water in them! Water is precious, rare, elusive, absent! And yet, we have managed to find another hidden, well not so hidden, actually very popular source of water in the massive, hot, dry, boulder piled canyons that we are camped in.
Not only did we find some water, but the hike up Rattlesnake Canyon proved to be one of the most abundant sources of free-flowing goodness, that we have found yet to date in the barren looking canyon walls surrounding us here at Indian Cove Campground in Joshua Tree National Park.
The Pathless Path
Begin here...
The trail beginning had a sign signifying that we had indeed arrived at the Rattlesnake Canyon trailhead. We began walking in the direction of the myriad of footprints on the ground and quickly lost the way. Rethinking our game plan, (consulting my desert hiking guide), we started up a well defined wash.
happy cacti
Quickly, we noticed that the trail actually followed the path carved out by a smallish stream. We hopped back and forth over the pleasant, shallow trickle of a stream, and followed the sandy wash, twisting and turning upwards through a beautiful deep canyon of granite looking boulders growing in size as we ascended the mountains.
hey you, follow ME!
Consistently, the size of the mountains and canyons that we have been hiking into almost daily, have been constantly deceiving. What starts out as a small unobtrusive looking canyon, turns into a multi stair-stepped labyrinth of canyons within canyons, like a Russian doll puzzle, each one revealing yet another, and another and another.
Jewel In The Desert
Shira is dwarfed next to the "falls".
Soon our path gave way to climbing large rocks, winding their way upwards till at last we found what we had come for, a miniature waterfall contained and surrounded by towering boulders and rocks, like a large natural shower. It was hard to believe that this stream was actually coming down the mountains of a desert.
an entire pool of watery goodness!
Closer inspection revealed a small, cave-like entrance on the side. Entering the opening, I was greeted with a refreshing pool of water to dunk in, as well as a shower of water coming down from overhead. The cave reverberated the sound of the streams, adding to the overall surreal-ness of the scene.
the entrance to the water cave
We quickly grabbed yet another refreshing skinny dip, getting our clothes on just in time to greet a group of kids with several chaperones arriving at the “falls”. One little girl said it best, “Look, it’s a Paradise!”, seeing something in her young mind, similar to our own.
Onwards and Upwards
stairway to heaven
Leaving the crowd, we scrambled up another couple of levels of rock and massive boulders. The terrain began to be all rock, granite-like, smooth and inviting. At a large flat area at the base of another decent, (for a desert), sized falls, we took yet another cool dip in a pool within carved rock, and got a little Sun, au natural, though that was short lived, as this area was proving to be extremely popular and a regular little highway.
some nice legs there
Several parties were descending down the steep stream canyons from above us. The terrain above looked treacherous, mostly ascending and descending up large, smooth slabs of granite, though many were circumventing it, my guidebook recommending the route for experienced boulder climbers only. Perhaps we’ll venture higher on another day though. For now, we were satisfied; it WAS as close to a Paradise as you can get in the middle of wild desert. A keeper!
come dip in me
To finish things off, we filtered through our Katadyn Pocket Water Microfilter
