Joshua Tree Secret

Rolled out of bed the other morning at five a.m. Not unusual for many people. For me, for Maureen and me, damned unusual. People post these beautiful sunrise photos. Dew on the grass, etc. We post sunset photos. Sunrise is hard. The coffeemaker needs 20 minutes. Then I have to stumble around a bit and find the cream and then there's yawning. Yawning takes another ten minutes, easy.

Anyway, we arose at the unholy hour, dressed, poured coffee into the travel mugs, threw our packs and water bottles in the Smart car and took off the eight miles or so to the North entrance of Joshua Tree National Park. Our intent was to see a really dark sky and, as it relented, some animals. Most animals are most active around sunrise and sunset. Sunset is hard. It's wine time. And, I'm usually hungry and it gets dark, really fast. So, we thought we'd try our hand at dawn. Zoomed past the unattended entrance gate and into the park.

Side note, Joshua Tree is a DarkSky Silver Award winner. I don't know what that requires but it means it is a really good place to lay back, well bundled, in a lawn chair or on the toasty warm hood of your car (headlights off, please) to view the wonders of the night sky as our ancestors enjoyed it. We missed that because of the three nights we were there it was cloudy and windy the first night. Second night we'd walked the whole day from mid-morning to mid-afternoon and we were really sleepy. (This is a vacation, right!?) And, the third night it was so cloudy we could barely make out the moon. So, before dawn should be good. This seems an oxymoron, but 05:00 was too late. Sun was giving the sky that rosy-finger thing. Arrgh. Now, one night from JTNP, we're parked in the middle of an urban sprawl and, from what I can see, it's clear up there.

One of the pieces we'd read about Joshua Tree NP said many parks can tell you where to go to see animals. At Joshua Tree they cannot. The animals could be anywhere. So, with that advice we decided it didn't matter where we went, so long as it wasn't close to the road. Recognize, this is a big park. Maybe 70 miles side to side and 25 miles top to bottom. Two types of desert abut there; Coloradan and Mojave - they may even - commingle. The animals, they keep to themselves.

Dawn pouring over the red hills in Joshua Tree National Park

We drove ten or twelve miles in. Found a soft road and led a cloud of dust into the desert toward the rocks. We stopped several times. The air was crisp and clear. We didn't see one damn animal. (I always wonder how many saw us.)

We did hear two wonderful things: first coyotes. It seems they do a good morning and good night howl. We've been out in the SW before and around dawn and dusk they call out from their respective haunts in yelps, barks and those plaintive howls. It's a census report. If there are too many around they're less likely to mate and add to the population. Males of all species being what they are I suspect there are a lot of alphas out there giving a little half-hearted yip, and going back to the den saying "Really quiet out there."

In their defense, the other thing you hear is real silence. No cars, no planes, no constantly blathering pubescent boys, no one shouting at crying babies, no giggles of girls, no radios, no mufflerless motorcycles, no cell phones, no goddamn leaf blowers, no car alarms, no newscasts, no yarp yarp, yap yap, psycho psuedo-dogs, no concussive car stereos. Just silence. At most the soft hush of the chill through dry branches. Then the breeze lays and there is nothing. We stop moving so that precious silence is undisturbed by the rustle of our own clothes or the crunch of sand underfoot. Keep it quiet, but pure silence is wonderful and, like truly dark skies, far too rare.