The Lost Palms of Joshua Tree

Today we're going to take a trek to the Lost Palms Oasis in Joshua Tree National Park. Yeah, I know it says to carry water, but I'm not going to, and I'll show you something during this video. And you may not need to carry water either. All right, so our hike begins at Cottonwood Spring, and you can see the palm trees behind me. So hopefully we're going to find a whole lot more palms and an oasis. Cottonwood Springs was a place to have a respite for everyone from the Indians to the cowboys to the hard rock miners who frequented this area back in the day. Only a couple hundred yards past the palm trees, there's a sign explaining about the bedrock mortars that the Cahuilla Indians used to use. And here's one such mortar. There's water in the bottom of it now. And here's another mortar, not far from the first one. To the Cahuilla, the mesquite was one of the most valued food sources. They would grind the beans, which were sometimes eaten raw, but mostly dried and ground into flour. They stored the ground flour in baskets or pots called olas. Hola! Como esta? Not that hola. This pipe stem type plant is called Mormon tea. It's got ephedra in it, and I was kind of surprised to see it growing around here because I haven't seen many of them in this region. And yes, the Mormons did actually make tea from it. It may look harsh out here, but the Cahuilla Indians survived just fine. They would pound mesquite seeds in the mortars and other seeds as well. And there are numerous other things to eat out here. Looks like a type of cholla cactus here, and a mighty spiky one at that. I believe this type of cholla is called pencil cholla, and you can see why due to the slender bulbs like pencils. So the trail gains in elevation from the parking lot. Not tremendously, but it's a little bit noticeable. And you get into scenery like this. Big rocks, ocotillo plants, cactus, and plenty of yuccas as well. I believe this plant is jojoba. You know, they get the oil from it and they put it in shampoos and things like that. We're getting into some of the rockscapes that make Joshua Tree National Park famous. We may not see any Joshua trees today on this hike because they're generally growing at higher elevations. All right, a mile in and that's what it looks like. I'm not used to having signage and mile markers along trails, but this is a national park. Another rock formation, this time framed by creosote bush. Some dried out blossoms from last year. This pencil cholla looks like it's been growing here for quite some time. It's hard to know exactly how long. This could be 50 years old. It's a pretty nice day for a hike. Another one of those chollas, just a wall of spines. So the landscape here is one of yuccas and cactus and creosote, punctuated by the occasional juniper tree. And let's not forget the ocotillos. I just found some massive ones. That ought to give you a sense of scale. A little more than two miles in, landscape opens up. Somewhere out there, beyond those hills, is a hidden palm tree oasis. The trail drops down into a wash. At least for a ways, this becomes our trail. Well, walking the wash didn't take very long. And we have another sign pointing us in the direction of the lost palms oasis. I wonder how these people lost their palms. How many they lost and how long ago they lost them. Some yuccas, backed by rock formations, and a beautiful blue sky. There certainly are a lot of interesting rock formations in this region. We're starting to drop down now. So I think we're probably going to drop into the wash that takes us to the palms. Hey, check it out. We found the lost palms. Have a look at that. Quite a cluster of palms right there. These palm trees are pretty big. Probably 80 feet tall, if not more. Let's head down the wash and see how many more palms we can find. The palm trees keep going all right. I believe the sign said that it was 3.4 miles to get to this place. The farther we go down the wash, the less palm trees there are. They're starting to diminish now. Almost as quickly as they started, the palm trees end. And then it's back into the big wide open desert. And these cactus growing out of the side of the cliff are teddy bear chollas. They drop their bulbs on the ground and any unwary hiker might find his boot filled with some of these. Worse yet, the side of your leg. I've pulled these things out of my leg more than a few times. They're sometimes referred to as a type of jumping cholla because the slightest touch will cause them to stick into your skin. Wow, that's crazy. It looks like a bat got hung up on the cholla and died there. He's just kind of mummified. Look at the grimace on that face. This bat probably died a rather uncomfortable death. Ouch, poor bat. Did you know that bats can eat up to 4,000 mosquitoes in a night? Anything that does that is a friend of mine. And growing at the base of the cholla is a beautiful pink-spined cactus that appears to be a young fishhook barrel cactus. On closer inspection, it looks like a baby bat got caught in the cholla. And maybe his mother came to try and rescue him and she got caught too. There's a little desert color to brighten your day. I bet the hummingbirds love these. I didn't bring any water with me on the hike, so let's see if we can find an area where we can build an earthen filter and have a drink. Palm trees out in the desert are an indicator of groundwater that has risen close to the surface. Doesn't look very promising just yet. Pretty dry. Look at that. Water's not only near the surface, it's right at the surface. In a few spots, there are places where water seeps out of the ground. This looks like a good place to build an earthen filter and have a drink. So you may recall in some of my other videos how I made an earthen filter. So it's basically the same thing here. Just dig, dig this sand down, dig it out, and let the water that's here come on through the soil, through the sand, and filter right into the hole that I'm digging. And then you can get a nice little drink. So the first place I started digging wasn't as optimal as I would have liked, but I'm going to have a nice earthen filter right here. If you don't want to use your hands, you can use things like this piece of palm frond as a scoop. Makes a pretty good scoop. So out of this reed, I broke the ends off and I've made a straw to more easily drink from the water hole. Pretty good. Not bad. Until you get the piece of reed in the middle, it's not so good. But now that we've cleared that out, I can have more water. All right, so I'm going to use this to clean out my reed straw here because I don't want any more of that vegetative debris in my drinking water. Yep, all good and clear now. Much better. I hope you enjoyed hiking with me to the Lost Palms Oasis in Joshua Tree National Park. You keep on subscribing and I'll keep taking you to pretty little places in nature like this and much more. Until next time, this is the Rock Hopper. I'll see you again.