Monday, November 19, 2018

Joshua Tree CRHT Hike


For the first half of our Camelback award hike, the troop headed out to Joshua Tree NP to hike the California Riding and Hiking Trail.  We did the eastern part of the trail through the park a couple of years ago so this time we were doing the western section from Black Rock Canyon to Juniper Flats.
We drove up early Saturday morning and met up at the Black Rock campground.  There were already two other troops there getting ready to hike.  Two of use took a car and cached 10 gallons of water at Upper Covington trailhead.  This would be the end of first day's hike.  We then took three cars into to park and dropped off two of them at Juniper Flats.  The car shuttle out of the way, we started hiking.  This section of the park has more foliage than the rest.  We hiked among junipers, pines and the standard desert plants.  We made good time while steadily heading uphill.  Light was fading when we got to Upper Covington.  We then discovered that someone had taken half of our water - and left the empty jugs!  Luckily, since it wasn't that hot, we didn't need all the water but we packed everything up and headed up trail another half mile to a good camping spot.  After a nice dinner, it got dark and cold so we all went to bed early.
Next morning, we got up and heading out after a quick breakfast.  The hike was really nice as we headed down into a large wash.  The hardest part of the day was heading up the opposite wall of the canyon but once we all got up there, it was all cruiser trail to the cars.


First mile!

Great views

Camp near Upper Covington

More views

And more views

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