On the Road with Hemfish – Chapter 9Sunday, February 15th, 2009 by Hemfish |
I awoke to a day sunny, but with a sky full of haze. It was clear that the sea lay over the horizon.
In my final push to the coast, I had one, highly recommended, stop planned: Joshua Tree National Park. In my excitement over nearing the mighty Pacific, I somehow missed the south entrance to the park, creating for myself the opportunity to perform a semi-circle around its perimeter. Always enjoying a good reconnaissance, I was, nonetheless, mildly dismayed at reaching an entrance (the north entrance, as it were) more than an hour later than I had planned, thus cutting into my daylight exploration window. Of course, if this whole undertaking has reminded me of anything, it’s that plans rarely remain static. So up I went.
I must say, Joshua Tree surprised me. Based on photos I’ve seen of its desert landscape, I had assumed (always dangerous) that the park lay at low altitude. It shocked me, then, to ascend so steeply for so long, both in reaching the entrance and beyond it. As it turns out, the heart of the park lies at a significant height in a series of relatively flat valleys, ringed by peaks, and invisible from below. I was now in a hidden landscape, a high corner of the Mohave Desert, inhabited by legions of the odd, twisted cactus/tree hybrids for which the park is named. To make the landscape weirder, giant formations of rock, which I had seen in photographs but exceeded my former conception in their uniqueness and scale, formed a vast maze all around me.
So here was a landscape to blow my mind. Well, it must be said, compadres, that the Hemfish had, by this juncture, contracted a severe case of sensory overload. Yes, brothers and sisters, my synapses were now so frizzled by weeks of brain-blistering landscapes, that I stared mutely at this grade-A vista – and felt nothing.
Not one to squander a national park experience, I made sure to get out there and immerse myself. I climbed around on the rocks; I trotted across a vast cactus plain; I explored a hidden valley. It was entertaining. I just felt incapable of any deep emotion.
I had toyed with the idea of staying up there past dark to see the legendary night sky, maybe even camping there. Now, late in the afternoon, I decided to check out one last point of interest, and then head down to L.A. So off I drove toward Key’s View.
At just over 5,000 feet, Key’s View looks south and west (but as much down as anything) at the Coachella Valley (altitude around zero feet), from the edge of the park, and what feels like the edge of the world. The sun was low in the sky, and friends, it was cold – about as cold as at anytime during my trip. Across the deep valley, the summit of San Jacinto approached 11,000 feet. So here I stood, one hundred miles, a couple of hours’ drive, from my sunny seaside destination, facing weather and terrain to rival any I’d encountered. It was hard to absorb, especially in light of my fried brain.
Haze funneled up through Gorgonio Pass to the west, and as the sun sank, it began to light that thick, humid air, giving it a reddish glow. Shortly, I would be driving through that pass towards another world. My numbed brain attempted to ponder what lay in store for me down there, on the other side of that threshold, by a new sea – how it would feel to wake up without looking ahead to my next stop, but rather, looking forward to discovering in different ways my new home. It was an exciting, yet daunting prospect, and I felt scarcely able to tackle the question.
I watched the sun set, as if to underscore the ceremony of the moment, directly behind San Jacinto, and then it was time to go. I walked back to my car (Ethel), to proceed on the final leg of my journey: a five thousand foot, one hundred mile descent, through which I could practically coast, like a skier in Alaska, descending from the highest peak all the way to the sea. As I climbed in, I glanced over my shoulder for one last look at the twilit vista. And as I viewed the red, glowing pass below, my impending route, flanked by high mountains, I couldn’t help but notice, it was smiling at me…
Reflecting in Santa Monica,
Hemfish
