Justin, Nick, and I have a friendship that goes years back.  At one point in time, we all lived and worked together at Grand Canyon National Park.  The home was a small cabin beside the Maswik Lodge inside the National Park.  At the time working for Xanterra Travel Collection (a National Park Concessionaire).  After many adventures, we still meet up to this day.  On this trip, we had planned to climb Spectre Peak in Joshua Tree National Park’s Coxcomb Mountains.  I was living in the Grand Canyon and Nick was living and working at Yosemite National Park.  Justin was about to head off to Idaho for a new chapter of his career and life.  Jessica and I had just gotten back from a trip to California to visit my side of the family and before I knew it, I was off to meet up with the boys.  Driving down to Twenty-Nine Palms was pretty relaxing, and not long after I arrived at our rendezvous point Nick showed up in his Kia.  We chatted for a minute, and before we knew it Justin came flying in as well.  The three of us then set our sites to find a campsite for the night.  We drove up and down some dirt roads on BLM Land; after; coming in contact with a Rattlesnake and digging Justin’s Jeep Grand Cherokee out of sand, we finally settled down and lit ourselves in a peaceful campfire.

We spent hours catching up before Justin retreated to his Jeep and Nick and I slept under the stars next to the campfire.

The Three above Photographs were taken by Justin Rauch.

The next morning the sun woke us up and we were off from some coffee at Starbucks in Twenty-Nine Palms before we would break the trail.  We stopped by the Visitor Center to acquire our Backcountry Permit and I bought some socks to bring home to Jess!  We then drove to the Trailhead and began our trek.  The entire route was off-trail and required some route finding.  We crossed a long valley while aiming for the entry to a canyon we could see from far away.  Once at the mouth of the canyon,  we followed a wash with Cairns here and there.  Before I knew it, the camp was right in front of us!  A small sandy spot next to the wash we had been following.  Many boulders and Mountain Ridges stood above us.  It was time to pitch tents and re-energize. 

After setting up our home for the night and cooling down from the hot sun a bit, the group of us set our sites on Spectre Peak.  We went up a side canyon from camp and began climbing class 3 terrain as we pushed for the Ridgeline.  Our views became more and more expensive and inspiring!  The heat had taken a beating on Nick as he was acclimated to the cold of a high Sierra Winter.  We made a team decision to turn around and enjoy the evening from camp when Nick shared that he felt very out of it.  Once I was back at camp, I gave more salt sticks to Nick and a wet shirt to tie around his head.  He lay in the shade next to our tents and after some dinner, he started to recover.  Soon the sun fell low and sunset photographs were our new mission!  Nick went to sleep pretty early due to his not feeling too good and Justin and I stayed up to admire the Dark Sky Park night skies a bit.  I sent Jess a goodnight text on my Garmin Inreact that I loved her and I was off to bed myself.

Once the sun rose the three of us packed up camp and headed back the way we came.  Admiring the geological wonder that lay around us.  Of course, once we were back to our cars after miles of cross-country travel we went to Joshua Tree Coffee Company and got Pizza at  Sky High Pizza.

-Sky