Joshua Tree National Park
Locate the trailhead.
After lunch, we rattled down the single lane dirt track to the Lost Horse Mine trailhead past the gate that closes at sunset. The trail winds upward along an old dirt track to the mine in about two miles and continues around in a somewhat longer loop if desired. Signs indicated a fire had been through the year before although we didn't see any natural signs of recent burn.
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| Looking out over the desert to the distant mountains near the start of the trail. |
Soon enough, we did come to the edge of the burn area, which changed our immediate landscape quite a bit.
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| Desert foreground and burned desert background. There is a difference. This is an edge to the burned area. |
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| These young Joshua trees have had a hard life, but a few of them look to be green and growing. When they're this small, they still look like the usual yucca, just on a stalk. |
With a bit more walking up the hill, we came upon the mine that was our destination. The most interesting workings are fenced off, partly because of the open shaft it stands above.
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| The main mine workings, which are surrounded by a few other leftovers from the old mining operation. |
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| Some of the more mobile pieces of mine workings actually litter the bottom of the gully that would gather water here in the event of actual rain. |
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| There were signs discussing the usual map of a mine like this one although they didn't discuss this one in particular. Various shafts were dug out at all angles from the main shaft and this wall marks where one once came up. |
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| Wheels that are part of the workings that sit over the main shaft and probably held some elevator like system once. |
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| This is the same main structure with all it's apparati. |
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| The back of that same main building. |
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| The gears that kept it all working. |
After looking over the mine, we climbed to the top of the mountain to see what we could see.
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| The desert valley below to the other side of the mountain than where we started. |
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| Off to the right of that valley, rolling hills are found. |
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| More of the view from the top of the mountain, which wasn't the highest peak around. |
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| Most of the folks up here on the mountain, me and a couple others missing. |
We climbed back down and headed back to be out by sunset, even though the chances of the road being closed actually at sunset seemed rather slim to none. Still, we had plans. Actually, as we passed after watching the sunset, the road was still quite open. A tarantula was spotted by the trail. Although I've been told that on some nights the ground moves with the bodies of hundred of tarantulas, this was the first I've seen in the wild.
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| A California native out for a stroll. This tarantula was wandering along beside the road. |
We continued on down the road again after a while looking at the rather large spider and headed for our next destination.
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| Yucca flower stalks but not a lot of flowers remaining. |
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| Young Joshua trees that were in flower this year. At least the one on the left was and now the stalk is draped over the other one. |
©2009,2010 Valerie Norton
Posted 6 February 2010
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