richard310
pew pew
So last minute, I went to Joshua Tree NP this weekend with my girlfriend, left Friday night and stayed til Sunday afternoon. I took Berdoo Canyon in at 11:30pm -ish which was quite fun, a cautious entrance and drive through BLM. No worries, I had protection and plenty of it. An interesting experience for a first timer especially at night. Had trouble navigating around Berdoo in the park to find the main paved road. Ended up doing the loop twice and driving through a mud pit. Finally found the road after backtracking and heading back up. It took us about 4 hours since reaching the Berdoo BLM entrance to the campsites. Couldn't find an open campsite after checking out Jumbo Rocks, Belle, and White Tank. So we slept uncomfortably in the X right outside the entrance to Jumbo Rocks at about 3am since Belle and White Tank were full except Jumbo Rocks. Once the sun rose, we headed into Jumbo and drove around again to find open campsites. And low and behold we find #58/#57. We traded spots with the former campers at 57 and setup camp then crashed. It was freakin cold, about 40*, especially for us SoCal-ians. Had to sleep under a few layers of blankets with sweatpants, hoodie, and beanie.
The following morning/afternoon, we cooked, ate then decided to drive Berdoo again to see what we missed. The loop had a little muddy section with water still in it that we went through the previous night. So we went through it again this time during the day. Quite fun and getting the Xterra muddy. Drove around and checked out some "jumbo rocks" and climbed a few. Headed back to relax then on Sunday we packed up and drove the main road to Cottonwood Visitor Center. Saw two white 4x4 vans decked out in expo gear with a montero behind the caravan. Didn't get a chance to snap a pic since they were going the opposite direction. Pretty awesome to see.
We were going to check out the Old Dale Mines but decided against it considering I only had less than half a tank left and no spare gas cans. We then checked out the visitor center then headed onto Pinkham Canyon back to the 10. Took us about 3 hours to get to the entrance. A great beginner-type trail with some fun little obstacles to get past. The little roadblock on the riverbed near the exit was interesting. Thought we had to turn around but found a way around and found the entrance to Pinkham and headed home. Ended up getting a good amount of pinstriping since the trail was a little overgrown and narrow on some sections. Traffic was great on Sunday night of Thanksgiving weekend lol but we had Jazz Cat shabu-shabu in Rowland Heights with a little stop to Half&Half Boba.
And finally the pics:
Daytime after finding our campsite:
Breakfast as always whenever we headout.
After going through the mudpit...
A beautiful sunset:
On the way out and a final pic of the site:
Pinkham Canyon Trail:
At the otherside of the trailhead:
The following morning/afternoon, we cooked, ate then decided to drive Berdoo again to see what we missed. The loop had a little muddy section with water still in it that we went through the previous night. So we went through it again this time during the day. Quite fun and getting the Xterra muddy. Drove around and checked out some "jumbo rocks" and climbed a few. Headed back to relax then on Sunday we packed up and drove the main road to Cottonwood Visitor Center. Saw two white 4x4 vans decked out in expo gear with a montero behind the caravan. Didn't get a chance to snap a pic since they were going the opposite direction. Pretty awesome to see.
We were going to check out the Old Dale Mines but decided against it considering I only had less than half a tank left and no spare gas cans. We then checked out the visitor center then headed onto Pinkham Canyon back to the 10. Took us about 3 hours to get to the entrance. A great beginner-type trail with some fun little obstacles to get past. The little roadblock on the riverbed near the exit was interesting. Thought we had to turn around but found a way around and found the entrance to Pinkham and headed home. Ended up getting a good amount of pinstriping since the trail was a little overgrown and narrow on some sections. Traffic was great on Sunday night of Thanksgiving weekend lol but we had Jazz Cat shabu-shabu in Rowland Heights with a little stop to Half&Half Boba.
And finally the pics:
Daytime after finding our campsite:
Breakfast as always whenever we headout.
After going through the mudpit...
A beautiful sunset:
On the way out and a final pic of the site:
Pinkham Canyon Trail:
At the otherside of the trailhead:
