it was the last day of the year, and it was a good one. i started in joshua tree, as discussed in an earlier post, and then drove through the dessert into mojave national preserve - a "no services next 90 miles" kind of place. mojave has it's own share of joshua trees which were awesome, but my favorite part was the dunes! there is one location where there is a huge pile of sand called the kelso dunes.
at first i didn't know how close to the dunes i could drive, and was a little disappointed when i got to the parking lot at the end of the road. but then i saw people walking toward the dune and on it. yes! we were allowed. with that realization, i was ecstatic! i took a swig of water and grabbed my camera and tripod for the adventure. the people in this picture are so small, i'm not sure they can even be seen.
as i hiked the "foothills" i realized that i underestimated how big this pile of sand was. hm, should have brought some water just in case. the elevation is about 3000 feet and the dune is about 650 feet tall. walking on sand, uphill is quite a challenge. it turn out the hike was about two miles long horizontally, all soft sand. it reminded me of the dunes on some of our east coast cross country courses, but this was like 10 times harder. i was having soooo much fun. i guess i was in my element.
the sand was actually very similar to the sand on my hometown beach in wildwood nj.
until i got to the initial crest, i wasn't sure i would make it the whole way. i was breathing heavily and needed several breaks.
at the top, i did the usual.
this was definitely a fun place for me and i took a lot of pictures.
this is the top 400+ feet of the dunes in height. going up, you have to take the trail to the right and then walk up the crest of the dune (from here you can make out the specks of people climbing up). coming down, i opted for the super steep section on the left.
this place is definitely worth visiting again. it's like a big sand box. a great place to be on the last day of the year.
No comments:
Post a Comment