Channel Islands National Park

 We spent 4 days in the Ventura, CA area.  We went to Santa Cruz Island of the Channel Islands National Park.  That was a beautiful place with an interesting history for an island.  The other days we did some chores, Dave did some work and we hung out.  There’s alot to see, but sometimes you do need a break and a little reset.  

The ride over to Santa Cruz Island was an hour boat ride.  Lucky for me (lol), the water was rough the day we went.  Dave got to see a feeding frenzy, dolphins and a whale.  I on the other hand did not.  A feeding frenzy is when there are lots of fish (thousands) in one place and the dolphins find them, then the pelicans see the dolphins and the whale hears it as well.  They all just “pig out.”  Apparently it is quite a site.  The dolphins are a smaller species than we are used to.  They swim constantly from birth to death to stay warm.  We also learned that the whale “blowing” out the hole on his head is actually a sneeze to clear the area to take a breath.  Dave was not able to get a picture of the whale, but did get the feeding frenzy and dolphins.

There were several tent campers on the boat.  You can bring your supplies over and stay in the campground on the island.  You have to bring everything and take everything out, garbage included.  It looked like a cool way to experience the island, but not my thing.  

Santa Cruz Island is partly owned by the National Park Service and partly owned by the Nature Conservancy. 

There was a volunteer who led a hike, so we did that to learn about the island.  The island was originally inhabited by the Chumash in the 1500s.   They lived with the land. They had boats that they made and would take extra supplies to trade on the mainland.  It was a long boat ride and to do it in a canoe… I am at a loss for words.  By the 1890’s all the Chumash had either passed, couldn’t survive on the island anymore or were relocated to missions.  The missions kept good records, so many can trace their heritage.  There is a lemonade berry plant on the island that the Chumash used to make a drink.  Guess everyone likes lemonade.  

Once we finished with the volunteer we continued on to Potato Harbor.  Gorgeous!!

The island then became a ranching island.  They grew olives, grapes, grain and raised cattle and sheep.  They had a bread making operation on the island and marino wool from the sheep.  

They planted eucalyptus trees because they grew fast, provided a good wind break and they could also use them for wood.  

There was a bird called the scrub jay on the island that is only found on that island.  We did not get to see one.  According to the signage there are nearly 150 plant and animal species that only occur on the island.  One other prevalent animal on the island is the fox.  They believe that they were brought to the island by the Chumash to kill rodents and other things that were eating their food.  In 1990 a survey was done and there were only about 15 foxes left on the island due to the Golden Eagles on the island.   This became a project of the park service.  They relocated the golden eagles and now there are 3,000 foxes on the island.  Unfortunately, we did not see one of them either.   There is a mineral occurring on the island called diatomaceous earth.  This was familiar to me because my Dad used it in our swimming pool filter.  

Once we were done hiking, we hung out on the beach waiting for the boat to take us back.  Rocky coast, beautiful view.

A few other pics:

Approaching the island

We are now in Pinnacles National Park, so look forward to sharing that next time.

Til then…

Death Valley NP

 Death Valley National Park is the largest park in the lower 48 at 3,422,024 acres.

Dave described it in one word as vast.  I described it as diverse.  

We started the day at Badwater Basin, which is 282 feet BELOW sea level.  It is the lowest point in North America, 8th lowest place in the world, but most of the others are all under water.  We happened upon a ranger talk/walk there.  The park is known as the hottest, driest and lowest park. Hottest recorded temperature was 134 degrees in 1913.  There have been multiple 130 degree days in the parks history.  The temperatures average over 100 throughout the summer.  Even some nights are 100.  The park averages less than 2” of rain a year.  Last year they had 1.93” of rain all year. 

It was interesting why it is so dry.  It gets the rain from the pacific ocean.  There are 4 mountain ranges between the pacific ocean and the park.  Water weighs over 8 lbs per gallon.  The clouds are too heavy to carry the rain over all the mountain ranges, so most rain is deposited before the clouds get to the park.  

The Badwater Basin is very salty.  It got it’s name because people going through tried to water their mule in it and it wouldn’t drink it so they called it bad water.  It wasn’t bad, it was just too salty for the mule’s taste.  There is also no vegetation in the basin because the water is too salty for the plants.  There is one animal that thrives in badwater basin and it is the badwater snail. These tiny mollusks exist only in a few springs at the edge of Death Valley salt flats.

They have had two weather storms in the last couple years where it rained 2” in a couple days.  This caused the lake to reappear that went out of existence millions of years ago and affected 90% of the roads in the park.

We walked on the flats for a little bit, then headed to Zabriskie Point.  This was a highpoint looking over “badlands”.  The pictures speak for themselves.  

Our next stop was Harmony Borax Works.  Borax was mined and processed here, then taken by a 20 mule team to market.  The loads weighed up to 36 tons, which included 1,200 gallons of drinking water.  The wagon wheels were 7 feet high and the entire “train” was more than 100 foot long.  

They did the processing here because it was too expensive to haul all the “garbage” part of the borax to be processed elsewhere.  It was the most lucrative mining that happened in the park.   The mining only lasted 6 years due to other mines being found in other parts of California that were not as remote and costly.  However, the 20 Mule Team name stuck.  One interesting fact, Borax will not crystallize at temperatures over 120 degrees, so they could not operate during the summer.  They also had to keep them cool other times of the year, so they would wrap the vats in water soaked felt padding.

Our final stop of the day was Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes.  Another entirely different looking part of the park. Dave went a little way on the dunes, but I went over a mile to go to the tallest peak.  Before this trip, this would have been my definition of a desert.  Boy have I been educated. 

I climbed to the middle peak on the farthest out mound.  

So vast or diverse?  It’s both and more.

Tomorrow we head to Channel Islands NP near Ventura, CA.  

Til next time.

     

Joshua Tree National Park

 Joshua Tree National Park 

Day 1 - a windy day, 20-35 mph winds with gusts to 45-50.  So…we drove around the park to get the lay of the land.  They have 3 visitor centers, we went to all three.  Two of them had alot of information about the indigenous people who lived here and one had more info about the Joshua Tree.  We did do one short hike because the wind drove us back to the car.  I don’t mind alot of weather, but a cool wind is not pleasant. 

Joshua Trees

The thing that boggles my mind the most is how the indigenous people survived in such stark conditions.  However, they knew what they needed and how to find it.  Those that lived in Cottonwood area of the park used the diverse plants for survival.  They used the cottonwood trees as wood for housing.  Boiled branches and leaves produced a wet plaster that relieved pain.  Rocks served as grinding surfaces for nuts, seeds and berries.  The spring nearby drew many animals that the native people could hunt.  When I read about what they had to do to survive, I feel extremely spoiled.  

Joshua Tree is actually made up of two different deserts, the Colorado Desert and the Mojave Desert.  Joshua Trees only grow in the Mojave Desert section because it is higher, cooler and wetter. For example, we are staying in the Colorado Desert section and they had rain the day we arrived.  That is the first rain they have had since July.  We arrived on February 13th.

We learned about a desert cooler, which was used by early settlers to keep things like eggs and milk cold before refrigeration.  It would be a cupboard door in the kitchen.  Outside was a box frame covered in burlap.  A water pan at the top would keep the burlap wet. Desert breezes evaporated the water from the burlap, cooling the area inside - just like perspiration cools your skin.

Minerva Hoyt campaigned for nearly 10 years in the mid 20’s to mid 30’s to have Joshua Tree land protected by the government.  Joshua Trees were being set on fire to guide motorists. The cacti were being poached for backyards in Los Angeles.  Overall destruction of the desert by unthinking visitors was Minerva’s motivation. In 1936 Franklin D. Roosevelt set aside 825,000 acres as Joshua Tree NP.

There are several Oases in the park.   Much of this is due to the San Andreas and many other faults that crisscross through the park.  As the Earth’s crust moves along these faults, rocks can block the flow of underground water.  These underground dams force water to the surface to form oases.  

Gotta wonder how many animals live under their cover

Day 2 - Wind made it a work day for Dave, craft day for June.  

Day 3 - The wind died down and we were able to go for a 4+ mile hike today.  We hiked the Mastodon Peak Trail.  We saw a Palm Oasis, an old mine and interesting rocks.  There is a lot more to a desert than you might think.  The Oasis is atop a crack in the Earth’s crust.  Geological faults crisscross the park.  Groundwater that hits a fault plane rises to the surface and creates conditions for an oasis.

These are pictures of an old mine.  The majority of the mining was gold, with some silver and copper.  There were 300 mines at one time in this area before it became a park.  This particular mine was established in the 1930s.  However, none of the mines lived up to the dream of striking it rich.  Considering the hard conditions due to heat, lack of water and lack of lumber I would think made it even more disappointing.  

There are alot of cool rock formations/piles in the area and along the trail.  Again a surprise to me that there are mountains and so many different terrains in a dessert.  Guess I only think of the Sahara, just miles and miles of sand.  Here is how these formed: The rock piles began underground long ago as a result of volcanic activity.  Magma (monzogranite)  rose from deep within the Earth.  It intruded the overlying rock.  The granite cooled and crystalized, forming horizontal and vertical cracks. The granite continued to uplift and contacted groundwater.  Chemical weathering resulted and worked on the angular granite blocks, widening cracks and rounding edges.  Eventually the surface soil eroded leaving monzogranite heaps scattered across the land like piles of to blocks.

There was one particularly interesting thing to me when we were at the peak.  You looked out and it looked like there was a lake between two mountain areas.  However, you know it couldn’t be because you are in the desert.  Really made you understand the stories of water mirages.  

It’s a little hard to see but look between the mountains, not at the sky, looks like a lake.

We went to a night program and learned about the nocturnal animals in the park and some of their adaptations.  Here are a few interesting facts: 

*Being nocturnal helps them survive because it is cooler at night, easier to hide from predators and less resource competition. (Competition example - hawks and owls eat the same thing.  Hawks hunt during the day, owls at night)

*Owls have really big eyes to help them see at night.  Proportionally if our eyes were the same size as owls, they would be the size of a softball.

*Most nocturnal animals have very good hearing, so predators need to be able to be quiet on the attack.

*Kit foxes two main adaptations are their very large ears and their paws are covered in fur so they do not make noise and also to help them maneuver across the sand, the fur acts like snow shoes.

*Pallid bat is unique in that it eats scorpions and centipedes, things that are on the ground.  It uses its hearing to find a bug on the ground, then plops on the ground and crawls to the prey.

*Kangaroo rat has 90 times better hearing than humans.  They can also jump 9 feet in the air.  They have a very long tail to help them maintain balance and land on their feet.  They showed a video of the rat jumping high away from an attacking snake.

*Tarantulas best sense is the hairs on their body, they are like tiny whiskers.  They also make a web over the burrow they are in and have a leg on each string.  If something comes by the burrow, it can feel it and attack.  They release a venom that liquifies the preys insides and they have a straw like appendage to suck it out like a straw.

*Yucca moth is the only pollinator of the Joshua Tree.  They lay their eggs in the Joshua flower.  This is the only way both of these survive.

Day 4 - Today we hiked to Arch Rock and Heart Rock.  Their names say it all.  There were lots of other interesting rocks to look at.

Heart Rock

Arch Rock

Dave giving concept of size

Other cool rocks

These formations had a row of almost individual looking rocks running through it

We also went to Keys view where you could see a snow covered mountain top, the San Andres Fault and many, many miles. 

The San Andreas fault is along the low brown mounds in the middle of the picture

This is interesting information about the San Andres Fault.

Our final short walk of the day was at Cap Rock.  They had an interpretive trail.  Here are a few fun facts from that trail:

Joshua Trees produce in two ways, by seeds or by producing tough offshoots from underground runners. 

There are very few cacti in the Mojave desert because most rain comes in the winter. When the soil is cold it is hard for larger cacti to absorb enough water to survive.  

I forgot to get the name of this one plant, but Juniper are throughout the park and they get water by having deep roots.  This other plant doesn’t have that ability, so they siphon off the juniper’s roots.

A few other pics:

I enjoy climbing rocks

Joshua Trees and Rocks, this is a common site in the Mojave part of the park

The only animals we saw were these little lizards running around and a chipmunk type critter in our campsite.

Tomorrow we head to Death Valley NP.  

Til next time.