JOSHUA TREE RIDING AND HIKING TRAIL, April 1-2 by Tom Amneus
After making the first day's car shuttle, Fred and Helen Easton, Roger Reinl, and leaders Monroe Levy and Tom Amneus started near the White Tank Campground and hike the 10 miles to Ryan Campground encountering over a dozen horned toads, plus assorted rabbits and an abandoned mining camp enroute.
That evening Park Naturalist James Youst gave a campfire talk on the Joshua Tree National Monument area which was attended by many of the other campers as well as our group of Angeles Chapter Rock Climbers who came down from Hidden Valley. The many questions asked by the group were evidence of their interest.
On Sunday Roger Reinl and the leaders accompanied for a few miles by Dr. and Mrs. Moore, made the remaining 14 mile hike to the car which was parked a couple of miles from the Covington Flat entrance.
TIN MTN. (8900'0, UBEHEBE PK. (5678'), April 15-16 by Dan Cummings
On Saturday morning, April 15, 12 D.P.S. members met at
Ubehebe Crater in the north end of Death Valley. While waiting for the tardy
leaders, some of the group had an extra 15 minutes to view this interesting
memento of a fairly recent volcanic explosion. The crater is 800' deep and half
a mile in diameter.After a short caravan over a fair desert road, 11 members started the five mile trek up the flank of Tin Mountain, the highest Peak in the northern Panamints. After about 45 minutes of climbing they were overtaken by fast-moving Polly Connable, who had arrived late. (It is rumored that Polly keeps in shape by running up Mt. Whitney on alternate Saturday afternoons.)
The party reached the summit in the middle of the afternoon and were rewarded by a magnificent view of both the snow-covered Sierra and the floor of Death Valley over 9000 feet below.
On the trip down, Joanne Roberts, a newcomer from Boston, had her first encounter with an angry rattlesnake. She still prefers southern California to Massachusetts.
Camp was made that night on the shores of the Grandstand, an island on interesting Race Track Dry Lake. The famous "sliding rocks", which move along the surface of the lake bed, were watched closely, but none were seen moving. One of the rocks, weighing several hundred pounds, has left a track across the "beach" of the island and several hundred feet along the lake bed, moving at the rate of perhaps a few inches a year.