Follow Me Through The Wilderness: Step 17: Off to Joshua Tree

We got back from the Canyon on Wednesday. Did laundry, ate, and went out on the town for 25 cent drinks and to a place called the wine loft to listen to bluegrass music and dance. Thursday I got my climbing stuff ready and went with my co-worker Sabine, her husband Tyler(works with a competing conservation corp doing trail work as well), and a couple of Tyler's co-workers to Joshua for 3 nights and 4 days.
After getting a guide book and doing all our food shopping which took much longer than planned we hit the road around 5:45. We drove through the night and arrived at Indian Cove campground just after midnight. After a quick bite we went to bed under the stars.

Woke up at 630am. Made friends with out neighbors who invited me for coffee and discussed climbing. Then we realized that pretty much the whole campground was booked for the weekend. So from 7:30 to 12:30 we went around the whole park before finally coming back to Indian Cover where two campsites opened up for us. After we finally got our stuff in our campsites we went up Rattlesnake Canyon to a climbing area called Dodge City. It was a 20 minute approach crossing streams and boulder hoping to get to the area. Tyler led a 5.8 to start with to get a top rope set up, and his co-worker Chris rappelled down and set up another rope. We spent all afternoon climbing the routes in that area. However, we got greedy and tried to climb one more route and take a shortcut back to our car. The route took longer than planned and by the time we were packed and ready to take out shortcut it was dark and we had two headlamps for the 5 of us. So we were forced to retrace our steps and what should have been a 20 minute jaunt to our car in the day took and hour to navigate safely at night. About 5 minutes before we got back we saw a search light on the hills looking for us as the place is closed down at sunset. I hurried back and sweet-talked the ranger out of giving us a ticket.
After getting back to camp Becky arrived minutes later after from driving from Ventura. What should have taken her 3-4 hours took 7 unfortunately. We fixed a delicious stir fry dinner, drank some beer and headed to bed to rest for another day of climbing.

We woke early the next morning, made a tasty omelet with veggies, potatoes, cheese and bacon as well as some coffee. Made our lunch and headed for central Joshua tree for another climbing adventure. It took longer than planned to find where we wanted to climb. But at long last we arrived at the Real Hidden Valley and hiked to a place called the Thin Wall where we would spend the rest of the day climbing all the different routes. Most of the day we climbed 5.8-5.9's with a mixture of crack and face climbing. At the end of the day we set up a top rope on a route called Childs play which is a 5.10d. At the time we thought it was a 5.10a though.
After an excellent day of climbing we made it back to camp just after dark. Set up a campfire and made a delicious pasta for dinner. We enjoyed music and beer and relaxed the night away.
The next day we cooked up what was left of our food including chocolate chip banana pancakes, and more eggs and hit the road exploring the rest of Joshua tree including a cool Cholla Cactus garden.
Enough words here are some pictures, but check out the album for all of them.