Ann’s cold is worse today, so I head off for Rattlesnake Canyon with her dad Bob under grey skies. It had rained during the night, so the pools in the arroyo are all fresh, and soon we’re scrambling up the bed of a running creek.
Many of the boulders are masses of golf ball-sized crystals in a dark granite, a kind of rock that seems rare in the rest of the park. Soon we reach a slot canyon where the water has carved the monzonite into deep chutes and bowls. We climb around on slabs, then I range up the canyon a ways further while Bob looks at our guidebook. There are some more neat keyholes and tunnels, some scrubby oaks, and even a cottonwood. I turn back when the boulderfields get too dense to move quickly. Bob and I clown around a bit with the camera on the way down, and absorb spots of sunlight when they break through the clouds.
4 responses to “Rattlesnake Canyon, Joshua Tree”
now imagine the pools during the summer monsoons…. imagine “good” thoughts. werd.
It would be a scary but amazing thing to climb up above that slot canyon during a flood and watch. The campground still had quite a bit of dirt deposited in floods, but the direction of flow wasn’t clear. That’s almost a mile from the main Rattlesnake wash.
ya know, it’s been a LONG time since i have been there. this New Year’s, i am hoping to do some good flogging.
GOOD NEW FOR ME… and what’s good for the goose, is good for the gander.
Karla’s 1/2 sister’s ex-husband.. she found him on the global email. he’s still a marine and lives in 29 Palms. i used to hang out with him. he’s way cool, not a grunt jarhead, but still a jarhead. sereant now. he’s still into climbing. he was a good climber. i can’t wait to hook up with him.
i just emailed him. so… i dunno, i am psyched.
“sergeant” now.