Set Up and Beginning

The seven of us: Bertrand, Jackie, Tracy, Donna, Scott, Steven, myself

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The seven of us (Donna, Steven, Scott, Tracy, Jackie, Bertrand, and myself) set out from HMC at 8:00 AM.  We stopped off at the McDonald's for breakfast before hitting the long road to Joshua Tree (~2 hrs away) in Donna's Camry and Ryan's Tacoma (thanks cuz!). 

The set-up for the hike was somewhat complicated because it is a point A -to- point B type of trip.  Another difficulty about the trek is that it is in the desert and therefore we had to carry water.  Not coincidentally, the trail intersects a road four times and so we were able to drive through drop off life-packages of water.  We arrived at the north entrance to Joshua Tree, the beginning of the hike, at 11:00 AM.  Donna, Bertrand, and I stayed with the two vehicles and dropped everybody off with the equipment and food.  The three of us (Bertrand had a GPS system and map so he was necessary) set out along the road and dropped off packages of water at our designated checkpoints near the road intersections.  We had to take the truck off-roading to get to a drop off point along a dirt road, which was a ton of fun.  After dropping off the water packages, we dropped off Donna's Camry at the end: Black Rock Canyon.  At the end of it all, we didn't even start hiking until 3:00 PM!

Donna and Steven pulling up the rear

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The others that were dropped off were able to divide up the food into everybody's packs, and they all must have weighed at least 50 lbs.  We set off along the trail and kept getting confused about the trail because a nearby riverbed looked like a trail too.  We were headed in the right direction though and finding the trail each time was not difficult. 

Because of limited sunlight, we stopped around 6:30 PM and began to set up camp.  It was extremely windy...maybe 30 mph gusts.  So it was difficult to set up the tents and even more difficult to boil water.  We created a wind block with the three tents and boiled water for our dehydrated food from REI for dinner.  In addition, we had crackers and peanut butter, fresh fruit, and trail mix.  The dehydrated food was absolutely delicious as surprising as that was!  But I guess when you're outdoors everything tastes much better.

Joshua Tree in bloom

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It got cold really fast; it felt like mid 40s.  So we all turned in early at around 8:30 PM after a long day.  It was hard to sleep because the wind would not back down and our tents seemed like they would tear at any moment.  Also, Donna was very cold in her sleeping bag because it wasn't rated for that temperature range (by then it was around high 30s).  Luckily, I had a 20F bag and a sleeping bag liner that Aunty Cherrie sewed for me (it really saved us! thank you so much!).  We both fit in the liner and we had a makeshift sleeping bag out of our two individual bags. 

It was a terrible uneasy sleep and we all had second thoughts about trudging through the desert.....