Date: 2005-02-02
To: Rocky warts and Sasquatch?
Miles today: 0.0

I went down to Orange County last weekend to see my PCT trailbuddy Prune Pirate. I managed to lose my camera on the Greyhound in the processand let me tell ya, you don't want to ever leave something on a Greyhound bus. Their lost and found system could use a major overhaul. They had a big metal cage I could look in at the L.A. station but my camera is probably in the San Diego station in another metal cage. We'd called that station but they gave us little hope. Luckily the analog cameras are getting cheaper by the day.Anyway, Pirate and I decided to go hiking. I mean what else do you expect from thru-hikers? I brought my snowshoes in case we would feel like doing something incredibly stupid like hiking in the snow. We got smart though and went to beautiful Joshua Tree NP instead.On our drive over there we tried to spot the Pink Motel and reminisced about the never ending switchbacking down hill after Fuller Ridge. Switchback hell, the part on the PCT where everybody runs out of water and it's exposed and hot. I remember how happy I was to find the water faucet at the bottom and how Burrito and I later overdosed on sugary cereal at the Pink Motel (which is not a motel at all). Thank God the AT doesn't have desert stretches.Joshua Tree doesn't have many long hikes so we decided to do the eight mile hike on the Boy Scout trail to Indian Cove, camp there and hike back the next day. Nice and easy. The hike went through the wonderland of rocks area in the high desert part of the park. The weather was great. Big blue sky. A little bit windy but no snow!As obnoxious thru-hikers we flew by a group of school kids and kept a good pace. We enjoyed the nice scenery and welcomed the exercise. Then we started wondering how all these rocks and boulders got there. Interesting question.... We wouldn't be Pirate and Rotten Apple if we couldn't think of some fantastical theory. Did a huge cyclone lift big pieces of rock from the surface of the earth, tear them to smaller pieces and dump those here? Or were they big warts that grew when the earth was young? Were they very contagious and multiplying fast and that's why there are so many of them? The answer is out there somewhere.... These big warts were of course great hiding places for the retired Sasquatch who prefer living in a warmer environment spending their last days. All in all we had a great time. We wondered if this hike should be considered a warm up hike or a cool down hike since I have been off the trail for less than two months. The answer came the next morning when I felt how sore I was. Definitely a warm up hike! We started off retracing the cross country part we had done the day before and luckily we both remembered different aspects of it so we found our way without any problem. I had more trouble climbing back up the steep hill. It was just like old times. Pirate ahead and me dragging behind. We were both glad that it was only eight miles to the car. You'd think I'd still be in good shape but I guess I'm not.The short distance left us with a lot of time to kill and we weren't particularly interested in another hike. Luckily, Prune Pirate had the exellent idea to play tourist and hop on the areal tramway out of Palm Springs. We landed in the San Jacinto mountains and played around in the snow for a bit. The highlight was sliding down the snow on a serving tray from the cafeteria. Made a great sled! Somebody had left it in the snow and we thought that was just excellent! I got a ton of snow underneath my clothes when I fell off but it was great! I hadn't had this much fun since the CDT. Thanks Prune Pirate for being such a good friend!!!