Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Hike to Fortynine Palms, a canyon-bottom oasis in Joshua Tree National Park.
Native California fan palms (Washingtonia filifera), familiar to Anza-Borrego and Baja visitors, can be found as well in scattered locations amid the rocky defiles of Joshua Tree National Park, which lies some 100 miles north of the border. The Mojave Desert town of Twentynine Palms was named after Twentynine Palms Oasis (a.k.a. the Oasis of Mara), and today that grove of native palms is occupied by the national park's Oasis Visitors' Center. Just a bit farther afield from Twentynine Palms, you may hike a 1.5-mile trail to Fortynine Palms Oasis, where more than 49 palms -- massive veterans plus young upstarts -- huddle in a remote, rocky canyon bottom.
To find the way to Fortynine Palms trailhead, locate the obscure lane called Canyon Road, two miles east along Highway 62 from the entrance to Indian Cove, or four miles west along Highway 62 from "downtown" Twentynine Palms. Turn south on Canyon Road and drive straight to the trailhead parking lot. Then, on foot, walk uphill on a rough trail over crumbling rock and past sparse vegetation. Plant life is resurrected annually during the springtime bloom, which typically peaks in late March or early April. Despite this season's paucity of rain, you will likely see some barrel, hedgehog, and beavertail cacti in bloom, providing highlights of yellow and magenta. Mecca asters, with light-blue petals and yellow centers, plus daisy-like brittlebush plants, provide additional splashes of color.
The trail takes you up and along a ridge, then down steeply into the crease of Fortynine Palms Canyon, where a number of palms with fire-blackened trunks and abbreviated skirts of dead fronds stand statuesquely against the blue sky. Some of the palms cluster amid jumbled boulders and bushy, spiky vegetation. A few sycamores struggle upward into the sky, their roots drinking in water at the surface or not far underground. A few of the boulders are large and reasonably flat and can be used for lounging, socializing, sunbathing, or simply lying still in meditation. You can gaze outward to the northeast, where a little slice of the Mojave Desert floor is visible, or close your eyes and contemplate the dry breeze rattling the even drier tips of the palm fronds overhead.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Hike to Fortynine Palms, a canyon-bottom oasis in Joshua Tree National Park.
Hike to Fortynine Palms, a canyon-bottom oasis in Joshua Tree National Park.
Native California fan palms (Washingtonia filifera), familiar to Anza-Borrego and Baja visitors, can be found as well in scattered locations amid the rocky defiles of Joshua Tree National Park, which lies some 100 miles north of the border. The Mojave Desert town of Twentynine Palms was named after Twentynine Palms Oasis (a.k.a. the Oasis of Mara), and today that grove of native palms is occupied by the national park's Oasis Visitors' Center. Just a bit farther afield from Twentynine Palms, you may hike a 1.5-mile trail to Fortynine Palms Oasis, where more than 49 palms -- massive veterans plus young upstarts -- huddle in a remote, rocky canyon bottom.
To find the way to Fortynine Palms trailhead, locate the obscure lane called Canyon Road, two miles east along Highway 62 from the entrance to Indian Cove, or four miles west along Highway 62 from "downtown" Twentynine Palms. Turn south on Canyon Road and drive straight to the trailhead parking lot. Then, on foot, walk uphill on a rough trail over crumbling rock and past sparse vegetation. Plant life is resurrected annually during the springtime bloom, which typically peaks in late March or early April. Despite this season's paucity of rain, you will likely see some barrel, hedgehog, and beavertail cacti in bloom, providing highlights of yellow and magenta. Mecca asters, with light-blue petals and yellow centers, plus daisy-like brittlebush plants, provide additional splashes of color.
The trail takes you up and along a ridge, then down steeply into the crease of Fortynine Palms Canyon, where a number of palms with fire-blackened trunks and abbreviated skirts of dead fronds stand statuesquely against the blue sky. Some of the palms cluster amid jumbled boulders and bushy, spiky vegetation. A few sycamores struggle upward into the sky, their roots drinking in water at the surface or not far underground. A few of the boulders are large and reasonably flat and can be used for lounging, socializing, sunbathing, or simply lying still in meditation. You can gaze outward to the northeast, where a little slice of the Mojave Desert floor is visible, or close your eyes and contemplate the dry breeze rattling the even drier tips of the palm fronds overhead.
Comments