A trip to Joshua Tree National Park while the temperatures are still in a range that allows hiking without being a camel or carrying several gallons of water with us. We did a short 1.1-mile loop hike to Barker Dam near Hidden Valley to break in some new hiking shoes for Frank and give Joni time to recoup from her allergy/cold attack. Between us we have over 100 photos of that short hike. The rocks were alive with cactus flowers and blooming shrubs. After a great hike we had our usual lunch picnic in the rocks. After lunch we drove back to the trailhead of the Wall Street Mill to reconnoiter and continued along the Queen Valley Road to the east until the wash boarding got to be too much for the small but powerful CMAX. I always come away from Joshua Tree refreshed and relaxed but more aware of the fragile existence that we are so lucky to participate in.
Quick history of Joshua Tree NP. It became a national monument in 1936 and a national park in 1994. Barker Dam was constructed initially in 1900 as a storage source of water for cattle in the vicinity of Joshua Tree NP. In 1910 William Keys acquired the property and continued development in this area.
Fresh off a scandal that Keyes participated in with Death Valley Scotty he moved south from the Death Valley area to Joshua Tree area and befriended Jim McHaney, a local cattle rustler and man of dubious moral character. Jim passed away after living a relatively long and questionable life and Keys took over his property. He worked the property both as a cattle rancher and a miner building the Wall Street Mill and enlarging Barker Dam. In his mining activities, there was a dispute over the Wall Street Mill and in typical Florida or Texas fashion he shot, killed, and in atypical fashion, was convicted of manslaughter of Worth Bagley in 1943. After 10 years at San Quinten, he was paroled and a few years later Trump issued a pardon (oops Freudian slip). What happened is that through the efforts of Erle Stanley Gardner, Keys was pardoned. He passed away in 1964. Keys Ranch is a guided tour area in Joshua Tree that we have yet to get to visit. It is on the list.
The trail works its way through the Monzonite of Indian Cove, a Cretaceous (100+ million years ago (mya)) formation. For non-geologists, a monzonite is an igneous intrusive rock (formed underground from hot-gooey magma). It is very similar to granite although generally finer grained. All granites and granite like rocks are at least second-generation rocks with the source rock being basalts (an above ground, or ocean floor rock generally from volcanic type of activity). If you are a believer in plate tectonics (and who isn’t?), granite like rocks were formed during subduction of continental plates. Essentially one big chunk of the earths crust jams under a second plate and is driven downward in a journey to the center of the earth. It never makes it to the center of the earth as it turns into the goo. The monzonites in Joshua Tree formed as plutons (big chunks of upward migrating, solidifying goo) making mountains. The plutons are estimated to have formed about 20 to 40 miles deep. The stresses in the subsurface, probably from the collision of the plates, created the joints within the pluton (that may or may not have been fully solidified) that give large portions Joshua Tree its characteristic outcrops.
There finally, I have answered a question that Dr. Rudy Epis posed on a test about 47 years ago or so on why is a granite a granite? This answer is probably better than … on the third day there was dry land. Next trip, I will add more, information on the drifting and the seas came in the seas went out history of the area of Joshua Tree.
