Red Rock Canyon (Joshuas and Spanish Bayonets)

I confess Red Rock Canyon is my absolute favorite spot to go disappear for a few hours (or days). I used to ride my bike there, only about 20 miles out of town, now in the midst of a development war.

But my focus that morning was on finding the perfect Joshua and the perfect Spanish Bayonet. Winter does not seem to affect the strange "tree" that lifts its arms to the heavens, although this time of year the clusters of flowers that adorn the Joshua forests in the spring are absent.

I knew just where to go for Joshuas and they were just where I left them last, intertwined with a variety of scrubby spiny brush that bites at your ankles when you try to get close. The Joshuas themselves are silent and watching, their spiny stiff leaves unaffected by breezes and sun. Trails, probably made by the charming burros, criss-cross the strange trees and beckon me to follow...just a little bit higher, just a bit farther into the eerie forest.

There must be hundreds of Joshuas here, extending their convoluted arms toward the cool winter sky. They are picky, I hear, where they want to grow, but indomitable once settled. I took my fill of photos, not of the proud straight Joshuas, but of all of them, the fallen, the curved, the broken...

Down the slope a bit, near the Joshuas but not intermingling were the Mojave Yuccas or Spanish Bayonet. More...

Wheeler Peak (Bristlecone pines)

What can you say about a mountain that lets you walk up its thirteen thousand plus feet and allows you to touch the sky? Well, thank you comes to mind, except not right away. First a hiker has to endure high winds (usually) and a final climb that involves a narrow trail on the edge of a steep rocky slope. The rocks aren't exactly glued in place, and toward the very top of this magnificent place, three steps up cost you two down. Thank you is the last thing in your mind when you slip and the hand that goes down to break the fall hits a sharp rock.

Eventually, though, you get to climb to the top of the world, where only a few rock shelters guard you and the Bristlecones from the cold whistling gusts that buffet the naked top.

And you can touch the sky, you are in the sky with the Bristlecones and the gray rocks and not much more. I didn't drive to Wheeler Peak this time around but I have pictures somewhere and will find them again some day and show you. And I remember clearly the six hour climb to the top, the biting wind, the fear of falling off the steeply inclined trail, and the numbing of the senses once I stood on top of the world.

On the return trip to the campground I remember seeing high alpine lakes, emerald green and reflecting the scanty pines surrounding them. There were deer too, in what I termed "deer lounge" because they saw me walk by without so much as a glance and never stopping their munching or getting up to acknowledge. There were colors and beauty everywhere in the cool pines.

But somehow I remember the mountain top most, gray and windy and bare...and I remember that it allows you to walk right up to the very threshold of the blue sky. And the trees, like the hiker, barely hanging on hugging and grasping at any rock that seems steady. Sitting on the top of the world for thousands of years, enduring the gusting winds and the inhospitable cold dry air.

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