Just out for a hike

Nathalie and I headed out to Joshua Tree for the day to hike around and check things out. I really hadn't ever done a "hike only" trip to Josh, it was cool to see some things I had never seen even though I had been to the park many times. We started by hiking to the top of Ryan Mountain, which I hadn't done for years. The view was great that day. Here is a pic of us at the top.

Next we headed to the secret crevase, which I still have trouble finding just about every time.

After the crevase we headed to the Barker Dam area. The only reason I had really ever gone out here before was to climb Gunsmoke. I had never noticed al the other amazing things in the area. We hiked the loop and I was shocked when we found some signs talking about petroglyphs. We went to check them out. You can see a few in the pics below. Over ther years some additional ones have been added but there are definitely some originals in he mix. There was also this cool wind blown whole in the rock.

Then we made our way over to Barker Dam, whic still had a bit of water in it. It was fairly nasty.

When we headed back to the car I saw the most amazing sign I have ever seen. A "no swimming" sign in the middle of the desert. That made my day.

We headed home and stopped at Crossroads for a bite before hitting the road, but we'll be back for sure (and probably with ropes next time).