Monday April 21, 16.8mi/27.0km

Maniobra Valley Wash (149.7/2160ft) to NW side of Eagle Mt (166.5/3420ft) (CA)

I had a nice easy morning of walking down the gravelly wash.

I saw a few of these large holes, I think they are burrows for Desert tortoises?

After a mile the wash turned off in an undesirable direction, and I hiked XC straight to the interstate.

It was pretty easy hiking through sparse vegetation, though I did come across one surprising obstacle, a can graveyard!

All the cans were the old style so I figured they were dumped in the 1960s. A little while later, and I was crossing over the interstate.

There’s nothing at this exit except for a convenience store, a cafe, and a museum. The General Patton museum is the first thing I hiked by.

I went into the convenience store to buy a massive cup of Dr Pepper, and some replacement first aid items. Afterwards, I ventured over to the cafe and relaxed in the climate controlled environment for over an hour while eating massive amounts of food and charging my electronics.

I paid my bill, refilled my water, and left the cafe before the rush of lunchtime customers. During the hike out of that little commercial complex I saw more antique tanks.

And a mile later, I was in Joshua Tree National Park!

It’s not one of the main entrances, or even an entrance that anybody really uses, since there’s no roads or parking. But it was a nice quiet hike up a sandy wash.

After an hour, the wash turned quite rocky and slow.

Eventually the bottom of the wash became choked with boulders and I had to scramble onto the hillside, where the guidebook described an “old miners trail”. I actually found traces of the old trail and managed to mostly follow it, And only a few parts were overgrown. The Ocotillos are blooming strong this spring!

Eventually that old trail dropped me back into the wash, which I had to climb back out of one more time to avoid another boulder choke. All of that scrambling and detouring was tiring and slow so when I got to the “Lost Palms Oasis” I took a nice break in the shade.

Now I was on an official National Park trail and the hiking was easy. Looking back on the Lost Palms Oasis:

The trail was really quite nice!

I strolled along for over an hour, seeing only one other dayhiker, and arrived at Cottonwood Spring. It was roped off with fences and signs prohibiting entry.

It would have been neat to go explore the little spring, but I wasn’t worried about getting water since the campground was only five minutes away. And because it’s for National Park tourists, of course it has water spigots.

As usual the campground was a confusing mix of roads, campsites and buildings. After filling my water I figured out how to leave the campground. The old 4wd road described in the book departs from behind campsite number 17, and the site’s occupants were a little confused when I hiked by!

Despite not having been a road in over 40 years it was remarkably easy to follow through the high desert. And I had great views of the setting sun on Eagle Mountain.

And a little while later, it sank below the horizon behind me.

Time to set up camp! I found a little sandy spot between some yuccas and called it a night.