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Hike 9/40: Let's Just Keep Hiking

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  1. Twilight Zone Recreation Area information sign at the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area trailhead
  2. Hiker walking a dirt trail through the Mojave desert with a large Joshua tree in the foreground and snow-capped Spring Mountains in the distance
  3. A dense bush of desert globemallow covered in small bright orange flowers, growing among dark volcanic rocks
    Globemallow absolutely going for it. Orange everywhere, rocks, no apologies.
  4. A large tent caterpillar nest, a dense, silky white web, draped across the bare branches of a desert shrub
  5. Bright red and pink Indian paintbrush blooming in the foreground against a backdrop of desert scrub and mountains under blue sky
    Indian paintbrush in the lower section of the trail, the lighter pink-red variety that mixes in with the grasses before the deeper reds appear higher up.
  6. Desert larkspur with tall blue-purple flower spikes in the foreground, with orange globemallow blooming in the background
    Desert larkspur in deep blue next to globemallow in orange. A ridiculous combo that the desert just pulled off without blinking.
  7. Mormon tea shrub in full yellow-green bloom, its upright jointed stems bearing tiny yellow flowers, with sage and desert shrubs in the background
    Mormon tea in full yellow-green bloom. Doesn't look like anything else out there. More like something from another planet than a Mojave shrub.
  8. A hand-painted wooden trail sign reading "Twilight Zone →" mounted on metal posts in a rocky desert wash
    The hand-painted wooden sign partway up the trail pointing deeper into the area. Very Twilight Zone. Very "you're on your own now."
  9. A hillside densely covered with Joshua trees stretching up toward a rocky ridgeline under a clear blue sky, with desert scrub filling the spaces between
  10. A rocky desert trail with orange globemallow and scattered wildflowers growing between dark boulders and desert shrubs on a hillside
    The wildflowers right along the trail. Globemallow tucked in among the rocks, just everywhere you looked.
  11. Deep crimson Indian paintbrush blooming vibrantly against a background of pale desert shrubs and a Joshua tree on a dry hillside
    The paintbrush on the way back. Deeper red than the ones lower on the trail, growing right out of the slope like it had something to prove.
  12. A beavertail cactus in full bloom with multiple large electric magenta-pink flowers opening across its flat pads, surrounded by desert gravel
    Beavertail cactus in full bloom. Electric magenta. The kind of color that doesn't look real until you're standing right in front of it.
  13. Two wild burros standing on a rocky brush-covered hillside, looking down at the camera from a rocky knob above the trail
    Two wild burros up on a rocky knob, watching us walk by. They didn't move, they just watched. The surprise of the day.
  14. Animated motion photo of a hiker walking a rocky desert trail lined with desert shrubs, with Joshua trees scattered across the hillside above under a clear blue sky
    Azure on the walk back, on a stretch where the hillside was washed with globemallow under all those Joshua trees.
  15. Animated wide-angle view of a desert hillside on the descent, with scattered Joshua trees, layered rocky ridges, a faint dirt trail switchbacking down, and a hiker visible on the right giving scale

Hike 9 of 40 for the year. Azure and I were staying at the Retreat on Mount Charleston for a couple days. The morning after our acclimation hike we drove down out of Kyle Canyon to the Twilight Zone Recreation Area on the northern edge of Red Rock Canyon NCA, tucked up against the back side of the La Madre Mountains. It's the quieter, weirder sibling of the Scenic Drive side of the park, and that suited us fine.

The Twilight Zone is better known as a sport-climbing destination than a hiking one. You show up, see a handful of climbers unloading rope bags, and then the desert basically belongs to you. We weren't climbing. We were just going to walk until we felt like turning around, which is the best kind of plan.

Joshua trees and snow

The first thing that hit us was the contrast. Joshua trees everywhere, a whole forest of them, and behind them the Spring Mountains still wearing snow up on the high ridges where we'd slept the night before.

The Joshua trees out here are big. Not Instagram-famous-Joshua-Tree-National-Park big, but mature, gnarled, multi-armed, doing their thing at the northern end of their range. Some were flowering, those heavy cream-colored panicles you only get to see if your timing is right.

Superbloom, basically

We hit the wildflowers right. I don't know what the rest of the Mojave looked like this spring but the Twilight Zone was putting on a show. The first one to stop us was a wash full of desert globemallow, bright apricot-orange, spilling down into the drainage.

Then a tent caterpillar nest, which is not a wildflower but was cool in its own horror-movie way. You could just make out a single caterpillar doing laps inside the silk.

Past that, the paintbrush started showing up. First the lighter pink-red ones mixed in with the grasses and a lone yellow desert daisy for contrast.

Then a ridiculous combo: desert larkspur in deep blue right next to more globemallow, orange and blue against pale desert gravel. The kind of thing that would look overstated in a painting.

Mormon tea in full yellow-green bloom, which I always like because it doesn't look like anything else out there. It looks like a plant made of wire.

Signs of the Twilight Zone

Partway up we hit a hand-painted wooden sign pointing us further in. Very Twilight Zone. Very "this trail is maintained by whoever feels like it," which is part of the charm.

The trail climbed gently through more Joshua trees, gaining maybe 800 feet over the first couple of miles, with that low cliff band off to the side and the Spring Mountains looming behind everything.

The turnaround

We kept saying "let's just keep hiking" (hence the track name), and eventually we pushed about 2.6 miles out from the trailhead, climbed up to around 5,130 feet, and called that the turn. Before we did, though, a little garden of cottontop cacti and more globemallow growing around a fallen, charred Joshua trunk. Death and life in the same three square feet.

The real stunner on the way back was this paintbrush. Deeper red than the ones lower on the trail, growing right up through a silvery sage. Paintbrush are root parasites, they tap into neighboring plants, so this one had found its host and was clearly thriving on it.

A little further down, a beavertail cactus in full bloom. Electric magenta. The kind of color that does not belong in the desert and yet absolutely does.

Burros

And then, the surprise of the day. Two wild burros up on a rocky knob, watching us walk by. They didn't spook, they didn't move, they just watched. Red Rock has a free-roaming burro population and they show up more often on this side of the park than down in the Scenic Drive area, but I'd never run into them this close before.

Home stretch

The walk back was mostly downhill and slower than it should have been because we kept stopping for flowers. I grabbed a motion photo of Azure on a stretch where the hillside was just washed with globemallow under all those Joshua trees.

And one more, a wider view on the descent that I think captures the character of the whole area better than any single still shot. You can see the layered ridges, the scattered Joshua trees, the faint switchbacks in the trail, and Azure off to the right giving it scale.

The numbers

  • Distance: 9.72 miles
  • Elevation gain: ~1,335 ft (smoothed; raw GPS track reads higher but that's noise)
  • Max elevation: 5,131 ft
  • Total time: 5h 32m
  • Moving time: ~4h 30m
  • Wildflowers: yes, many

9 of 40. Onward.

Aaron Crowder

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