mojave national preserve – Josh Hodge blog

Monoliths and Stars: Wonders of the Mojave

January 23, 2022Posted in UncategorizedTagged california, hole in the wall campground, mojave desert, mojave national preserve, monoliths, national parks, night sky, rings trailsLeave a comment

I thought I had seen it all, that there was no type of landscape which I had not become accustomed to throughout my travels. It was quite a disheartening feeling to consider, what could possibly be left? The good news, though, is that I had not been completely spoiled; that I was far from it. Only ignorance had pervaded my thoughts, for I stood before something entirely new- a landscape previously uncataloged in my mind- a monolithic wonder in the Mojave National Preserve. The very thought in my mind was, Wow, I couldn’t have imagined something like this.

This moment was near the end of my day. I had started about 295 miles away in Phoenix, Arizona, where the first night of my trip had been spent at the house of my cousin Matthew and his wife Robin. By the time I traveled across the remainder of Arizona and into California to the Mojave National Preserve, it was late evening. My plan had been to visit the Kelso Dunes and hike a short three miles to a mountain peak, but this would have to wait until the following day.

Although sandwiched between interstate 40 and Interstate 15, and a mere sixty miles from Las Vegas, this park has yet preserved its remote feel. When I turned to enter the park, I was greeted with the official National Park Service sign. Visitors had tatted up the corners of the sign with stickers and a few bullet holes punctured the middle, telling me that this area was not as well supervised as some of the other parks. I entered from the south on my way to the Hole-In-The-Wall campground. It was first come- first serve, and I wasn’t concerned about finding a site, for I read that visitation was low in the summer. The Mojave desert is just not a place most people want to be in the summer with the sweltering temperatures, but my only concern was the drive, for a number of roads in the park were marked unpaved, including the one to this campground. Before I hit the dusty sand roads, I was cruising along the pavement among grand stretches of desert. Dry shrubs nearly covered the terrain, and every once in a while a cactus, yucca, or Joshua tree would stick up. Around me I saw crumbly mountains and mesas in the distance. I hadn’t expected the expanse of this area to be so enormous.

When I reached the bumpy dirt road, before me crawled an animal I had never seen before. Its fur was dark, and its appearance was prominent. Although nor particularly large in the grand scheme of things, it was larger than anything I was expecting to see. I got out my cell phone and texted my friend Zack in Kentucky, who would be joining me on the adventure in a few days. “I just saw a wolverine,” I typed. I was wrong, so embarrassingly wrong. I did not know. Wolverines do not live in the American Southwest. They are mammals of the far North. We can file this next to the instance on my first adventure, when I thought I saw a wolf, but it was really just a coyote. What I had just experienced was my first sighting of a badger. When I neared the campground I witnessed a pair of black tailed jack rabbits situated in the middle of the drive, jumping further down the road and then off into the shrubbery as I neared .

Finding a campsite was not hard. I was alone, except for one other occupied site. I quickly pitched my tent at a site far from the others, on the opposite side of the campground. I was distracted at times by a nosy little desert cottontail, whom I pursued to capture a photo of, and who surprisingly let me get closer than I expected. Back to work, I got my tent set up swiftly, as I was planning to get at least one hike in before the day’s end. Once I had everything set up, I drove over to the Hole-In-The-Wall visitor center. It was an old Western style wooden ranch building with a wrap-around porch. There was a clear place for a sign to identify the ranch, but it had been removed, and the flag pole out front was also bare- a sure sign that this was definitely off season. It would have been the perfect time for a tumbleweed to tumble on by or a vulture cry to sound off in the distance, for I was very much alone and very much in the desert. I checked around the perimeter of the abandoned visitor center for any maps or trail guides, but nothing. I was on my own.

However, I found my trail head next to the visitor center. I then geared up. First off, I was certain to have water in my camelbak backpack. I brought a light hoodie, expecting that soon the temperature may drop, and I brought my headlamp, for I knew sunset was not far away. I made sure I had my car key securely in my backpack. I was not going to face the panic of last summer when I locked my key in the car at Chiricahua. To help avoid repeating that situation, I bought a short lanyard keychain at a gas station earlier in the day. Then, all ready to go, I hit the trail. It began with a stroll among the shrubbery and quiet meandering around some teddy bear cholla cacti. Then the path slithered between some boulders, and up to some rocks adorned with native American petroglyphs. At this point, the sun was just resting above the horizon, casting dark long shadows behind every protrusion in the desert, but laying gold upon anything its light touched. The path then led around some big rocks to a picturesque Southwest view. There were two large mesas, one laying in front of the other and the top of a mountain peeking up behind them. The air was warm and incredibly still. All around me was silence. I climbed up a rock, not taller than myself, and stood upon it, gazing out into the distant stretches of evening desert. I closed my eyes and quietly reveled in the moment, in my being, in the presence of God, in my arrival to a new adventure. I felt as if I had come back to an old friend. The desert: I know you. We have been separated for a while, by time and space. So much has happened. So much has changed, but yet you are the same, quiet and reserved, a library of adventures past, calling me to be grateful of the years gone by. The desert knows years gone by. It has been through them. The desert is well weathered by the ages, but yet calm and knows its place.

As I pondered the desert, I thought about how in the desert, you don’t have to be up high, or in any particular overlook, to look out among the immensity of the land. In the desert there are no tall trees nor overgrowth hindering your view. Here it’s all laid open. One stands above and can see the great immensity of the land. And the desert here, in the Mojave, is not a barren plain, but it does have features: mesas, rocks, and distant mountains. The view just stretches on seemingly forever. It derives a similar feeling of a mountain top experience, when your life is sort of put into perspective, as you observe the immensity of that which is around you and are surrendered to a humbling comfort. Your problems seem diminished and are put in their place.

The warmth of the desert also has a comforting feel to me, especially in the evening, when the sun isn’t harsh, but a dry warmth still blankets and comforts you. If the sun were to set, if I were to be lost for the night. I would be fine. The desert may cool some, but won’t freeze. The air is still. Bugs are absent. Any perils of the night are gone. Yes, some may find the desert to be harsh and univiting in the day, but in the night I find it very welcoming and suitable for the lone traveler.

When I jumped down from the rock I was observing from, I turned around to a giant monolith in the desert: a massive rock feature just protruding solo and drastically from the desert floor. The trail wound around into a wide slot canyon that was somewhat narrow but then opened up in the middle of the monolith to a canyon wonder. Here I paused. Wow I could have never imagined something like this. I was taken away by the uniqueness of the scene. This was a new terrain, a new landscape I hadn’t experienced before. Here giant groupings of hoodoo-esque spires huddled together, right up against each other. They were together, yet individual, like you could pull or peel them apart. They stood as if flaunting their curvatures. And all of them were missing circular chunks, as if shot by enormous canyons, mimicking swiss cheese, or as if they had sunken eyes looking out at me. I had never seen any rock formations quite like this. It was unexpected. The desert just outside this canyon was not drastically different than what I’d seen before, but this short walk into the slot canyon displayed a whole hidden world, so unique. It was so nearly enclosed too, like it’s own hidden fortress. I paused and just looked around in amazement. It completely wiped away from me the thought that nothing I could see would be terribly new. This affirmed there was much more to see, and things can, and would, exceed what I could imagine.

This was only the first of two surprises on this short hike. The canyon grew narrower with each step until there was no canyon left at all, and it seemed I had been walled in, but upon observation I found a passageway of sorts. There were cracks in the jumbles of rock, just enough space to fit a body through, and they were steep, ony presenting a passage that went vertical. Affixed to the sides of the rocks were a series of steel rings. This was called the Rings Trail and I had read about it, but seeing it, I was well surprised. The rings portioned looked more challenging and more extensive than what I had imagined. This would be fun. Like a puzzle to solve. I had to figure out where to establish footing on the rock wall, and which rings to grab onto, as to establish grip which was conducive to a trip upward. The passage grew narrower, then curved. I was really immersed in this rock world all around me and the task at hand.

I appreciate a trail that presents a challenge, a unique skill, or problem solving. There is one trail back home in the Big South Fork that requires one to rapel him or herself down a boulder’s face. In the Rocky Mountains I’ve hiked up a waterfall. Even a mere swinging bridge can add some fun and variety. This Rings Trail presented something new, and it was definitely one of a kind.

When I finished making my way through the narrow rock passageways, I found the rock terrain to open up. I found myself not completely out of the canyon, for walls still surrounded me, but I was well above the portion I had just traversed. Now I was at an established viewpoint where I could look back down in the rock world beneath me. Up around me I noticed the curvatures of the rocks. They were not jagged nor harsh points, but rather the rocks seemed to flow and lump, as though melting chocolate. The rocks were plain gray although lumped into the mix were orange colored rocks as well. If I was handed five stars, I would rate this trail 5 out of 5. “Unique” is the most justifiable term to use to describe it.

When I made it back to my campsite, a mere maybe quarter mile away, the sun was setting. I was walking around the campground, tracing its perimeters, trying to see if there were any trailheads from the campground. I had the intention of going on a nighttime hike. I would rest in my tent, and, when it got much darker and the stars came out, I would go for a night hike by flashlight.

When I did get to resting in my tent, I was out. I slept long and deeply. At one point I did wake up, as a different aspect of nature was calling. Inside my tent it was very dark, as I reached for the side of the tent to unzip my way out. When I pulled the flap of my tent backward, I unwrapped the most beautiful night sky. Millions of stars decorated a huge desert sky. The milky way ran prominently and astonishingly through the middle of the expanse above. I was amazed. This was all visible with simply my glasses on, which I don’t see very well with. Right here, right now, in the middle of the night, well…after answering nature’s call, I put on my contacts so I could really see and take in the beauty above me.

Looking out upon the desert alone is enough to make one feel small and shift one’s life into perspective. But take on top the desert the profundity and awesomeness of the night sky, and then one is really put into place. One of my favorite song writers, Matthew Parker, in his song Shadowlands writes “The moon and stars are the only light to tell us that we’re lost in the endless darkness of night.” This moment illustrated this perfectly. Observing the stars in such a glorious display in a remote area, does initially evoke a feeling of lostness. The universe becomes so immense. You seem so small. What you witness is so immense that you feel but nothing, lost in the great immensity of what is. But Matthew Parker, as well as myself, know that we don’t remain lost. What’s most reassuring and comforting is that, amidst feeling lost in the great order of things that exist in the universe, we are found! We have been sought out, we are accounted for, by the great Almighty God and Creator of the immensity before us.

It is no wonder early peoples and cultures, whether it be Native Americans or any group of people across the sea on this earth, spent such a great amount of time pondering the sky and trying to derive meaning from it. It is just so astounding when it is untouched by the light of civilization. It is no wonder early people and societies were so spiritual. I would find it a challenge to the human psyche to observe such wonder and not believe in a spiritual realm or a creator. Can you imagine living out in the desert and this being your view every night, or living out on the Great Plains and this being a constant entertainment for the mind? Think of the men out at sea, nothing but the ocean and these great heavens above you.

Sadly, most of human society has lost reverence for the night sky. If you live in a city, you can’t see its wonders at all. It becomes easy to be consumed by you, yourself, and your own immediate surroundings. You fault the opportunity to put yourself into perspective. And you lack the beauty which calls you back to the Creator. Even those who live rurally may miss out on the powerful impact of the full night sky. Instead, people find themselves inside in front of their television sets, seeking entertainment, when really the night sky is the more noble form of entertainment, for it engages not only the senses, but the mind, and the spirit.

But you know people are afraid of the dark. I don’t say this because of what we playfully think: of monsters, and bears, and things that go bump in the night. No, people are scared primarily of their own thoughts, the condition of their own souls, and the night sky is a reminder of the greatness and eternity we are all a part of.

Get outside! Don’t be scared of the dark. Face your thoughts, face the eternity before you, and find your place in the order of things.

This was night one of my camping road trip. Tomorrow I’d explore more of the Mojave National Preserve and return to my favorite National Park- Death Valley!

Read my previous entry here: All My Friends: Reflections from the Desert

Check out my book Still, Calm, and Quiet, here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093RMBNCP

The Booming Sands of the Mojave

January 7, 2022January 7, 2022Posted in UncategorizedTagged booming sand, california, desert, kelso dunes, mojave, mojave national preserve, national parks, sand dunes, singing dunesLeave a comment

With each elongated step of sliding down the enormous sand dune, a reverberating booming sound escaped the sands from beneath me. This was remarkable! I had never met such a phenomenon before. I felt as though I was the one instigating such a feat, thus giving me feelings of a supernatural essence.

I was at Mojave National Preserve in southern California. This preserve was the first noted point of interest on my fourth great National Park adventure. The park features the largest Joshua tree forest in the world, canyons, mesas, volcanos, abandoned homesteads, military outposts, and “singing sand dunes.” During the entirety of my visit to the Kelso Dunes section of the park, I was the only one there. It was early morning, and the desert sun was just starting to become quite fiery. I was excited to take on the sand dunes. As I looked out upon them, I determined, then and there, I had to make it to the top of the tallest dune. Learning from my mistakes in the past, and after having burnt my feet at the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado, I made sure my footwear was solid. I filled up a water bottle, threw a Clif Bar in my backpack, lathered up and worked in my sunscreen, and took off running into the dunes.

My fourth great National Park adventure was really starting to take off! I had embarked on such trips the past three summers, in which I’d camp and travel from National Park to National Park for the large majority of my summer break hiking and exploring the great outdoors. This trip, although starting in the Southwest, would eventually take me far up into the Northwest, an area I had yet to explore. This was my second day in the Mojave National Preserve, but the first one waking up in it. Already the park had impressed me. My expectations for it were quite low. I had been to other parks in the Mojave Desert before, such as Death Valley and Joshua Tree, how different could this be? And it was a “preserve,” such a title to me suggested less opportunity for recreation. However, I was surprised. This place was by far underrated in the National Park Service and filled with many hidden gems. I was in the midst of discovering one of said gems in this moment: the Kelso Dunes. They gave justice to the term sand dunes. But perhaps would be more justified by a term “sand mountains.” Enormous mounds of sand rose above the rest of the desert. On the lower sides of the dunes, desert grasses poked up sparsely from the wind combed sand and Mojave fringe-toed lizards scurried about. The creatures were quite nervous and incredibly fast, but stealthily, as if sneaking up upon my prey, I was able to approach one to capture a quite satisfying photograph. I also had to capture photos of myself in such an area. The shock value of such a contrasting landscape, from that which I was accustomed to in Kentucky, was striking upon me.

As I looked at that enormous sand dune in the distance, the one I resolved to climb to the top of, doubt began to creep in. It was hard to gauge exactly how tall the sand dune was. I wanted to be done in an hour or two, for although as exciting as this was, I also had other places to see and other things to do. Looking at the dune, I could not determine if this would fit nicely into my plans or would require a full day expedition, and if it was the latter, I was not prepared and rather ill-equipped. But I determined to press forward. If it proved too much I could always turn around. Then, not only was I considering the time factor, but I started to wonder if it was physically possible, for the rising of the sand looked quite steep. Would I be able to pull myself up that? There was no designated trail. This was a free for all, and quite obviously no one had been out here this morning, and perhaps not for a while, for the traces of any feet in the sand had been well swept away by the wind. The place looked untouched. It was just me and the desert. Graciously enough, this peak in the sand dune expanse, did not present any false summits, however dips and dives in the sandscape did surprise.

I didn’t try to dig my feet in the sand, but as I started to ascend the steepest stretch, my feet naturally sunk into the sand, and pressed further in as I tried to establish footing to push myself upwards. I paused to look around. The landscape was just so enormous. To my one side was the wall of sand, but out below me to the right spread, so immensely, the Mojave desert. The light-colored sand expanse spilled for just a mile or so into the desert, before the long stretches of valley filled with cactus and shrub took over, with the bright morning sun casting shadows, which not noticeable individually, but collectively, gave a dark brown hue to the landscape. Then as the mountains in the distance, bordering the immense valley, rose up, the higher they climbed, the bluer the tone they assumed, until, at their darkest summits, a crescendo of the breaking sky burst in a glorious white only to quickly transition to a spotless blue that covered the rest of the desert sky.

I continued on, elated, feeling as though I had really arrived upon adventure’s doorstep. Then, I reached the top, standing bold and accomplished, I looked over the other side of the dune and saw the same immensity of desert and mountain mimicked. Here at the pointed spine of the sand dune, on the Eastern side, the sand was finely combed into delicate rivets by the wind. On the Western slope the sand had been blown into one smooth, harmonious sheet of sand. The spine snaked up to a higher pinnacle. I crushed the delicate spine as I trampled my way to this final viewpoint. And there I stood in awe. I could assume, a great number of people, especially back East, couldn’t even imagine such a robust desert landscape existed in our country. I felt I was in such an exotic place, a place from fiction, and that I was the Prince of Persia.

I sat down, drank some water, ate my Clif bar, and sucked on a few electrolyte dummies. I reveled in the comforting and consuming sun. I took off my boots and sunk my feet into the soft sand. Here, from this pedestal, I looked down upon the Earth. It was one of those mountain-top experiences that puts life into perspective. The immensity of the view before me, and the diminutive nature of everything from such heights, put life into perspective. The canvas is much bigger than the small concerns we often get caught up in below.

When I was done taking it all in, I began my descent, and the gravity of the Earth pulled me downward, and thus a single step slid well into the sloping sand before me, carrying me quite a distance. It was nothing more than a controlled falling glide into the sand, but it gave quite the superhuman sensation- a similar sensation one might get walking upon those conveyor belt automated walkways at the airport. One stride takes you much farther than humanly possible alone, as the very ground beneath you moves in conjunction. Thus I was descending nothing short of a mountain in mere easily countable strides. The effort was minimal, so I held my head up and looked out upon the other more solid mountains parallel and at times below me. I felt as though I was descending upon the Earth in majestic style. And to top it all off, the sand beneath me boomed! That’s right, the sand beneath me sensationally responded to each of my steps! There’s a scientific explanation behind this. It has to do with the warm layers of sand meeting the cold layers beneath and sound waves getting trapped within the layers, but to me, I imagined as if it was I causing the sound, or as if the earth was shuddering to each of my steps, as if I was Zeus or some Greek god descending from the sky upon Olympus.

As supernatural musings took hold of my thoughts, I began to think of Heaven. How will man interact with the landscapes there? Will such enormous, satisfying, efficient strides be more commonplace? Distance and strenuity have a hold of man’s interaction with wild landscapes, but what if there they will be more easily traversed and enjoyed?

I had a dream, just months prior, that I was in Heaven. I recently had read a book by David Murray titled the “Happy Christian: Ten Ways to Be a Joyful Believer in a Gloomy World.” In it the author talks about how work is not a result of sin, but how work as we know it on Earth has been corrupted by sin. The author discusses how Adam and Eve, before the fall of man, worked in the Garden attending to it and naming the animals. They were designed, in part, for work. Eve was even created to help with said work. Thus work existed before sin, and so the author proposes that work will also exist in Heaven; that we will all have our own duties, but it will be joyous and fulfilling. I think this portion of the book was responsible for my dream, for in my dream I was at work in Heaven. I was a harvester, or scavenger, in the forests and jungles of Heaven. We went collecting exotic Heavenly fruits to bring back to the people in the Kingdom. And it was thrilling! Our feet were always bare, but they were never worn nor scratched. We would jump from mountain peak to mountain peak. We’d race through all the undergrowth of the forest, unscathed. We’d fall with the waterfalls in excitement to take us from one place to another. We were a team, such great comradery, and we were harmonious with the land. Toil was not there. The land never caused us harm. The way we interacted with it served our purpose. There was no strenuity, danger, or fatigue, such things were absent. Nature had no temperament. It agreed with us. Maybe we even had authority over it.

It was just a dream, fun to entertain, but at the end of the day, a creation of my imagination. But here on the sand dunes in Mojave National Preserve, I felt a fragment of what I felt in that dream. The desert had no hold on me. I had power over it. It gave a shuttering boom with every step, and I could traverse it with ease. Thus I became flooded with the thoughts and awe of eternity.

I didn’t know it then, but I know it now, eternity would become a major theme of the summer. I would end up facing questions about life, death, and eternity here after. This would become a heavy but blessed summer. As I descended those sand dunes, along with the weight of gravity came the weightier questions of life: What is my purpose here in life? How do I relate to others in the time I’m given? Would I leave a legacy when I’m gone? Does that even matter? As the sand spilled down the dune, so these questions tumbled down upon me. The timing was orchestrated and perfect, although it wouldn’t be easy. I had traversed the Canyonlands, learned to be Still, Calm, and Quiet, and now it was time to face the prospect of Sunset.

Check out my book Still, Calm, and Quiet, here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093RMBNCP