Joshua Tree NP, 01/04

Kevin, one of my good friends recently moved to the Palm Springs area, and as luck would have it towards the middle of January I got myself a new car. I've been driving hither and yon ever since. One balmy weekend, Ryan, Tigger (my car), and I set off for a weekend of camping and hiking through Joshua Tree NP. Just the weekend before Kevin and I had tried to find the southern entrance past Indio and failed, having turned back too early. This time, however, Ryan and I managed to find it just five miles past. I had never been to the southern section of the park before and was amazed at how different it looked from the northern area around Jumbo Rocks. There weren't any Joshua trees. The landscape was mostly octillo, yucca, and some cholla smattered around. It was also quite stunning to be able to see the Salton Sea from the top of Mastadon Peak and see Cottonwood Spring after a mild hike through the desert. Aside from Big Bend, this was one of the only desert oasises I've seen. I am certain it must be a welcome shady spot during the hot summers!

The Photographs

These pictures were taken with my Minolta SRT101 on Kodachrome 64 PKR. I find that Kodachrome is perfectly suited for capturing the subtle shades of the desert without any overexaggeration. The lenses that accompanied me were the 21/2.8, 24/2.8, 28/3.5, 35/1.8, 35 Shift, 45/2, 58/1.2, 85 Varisoft, and 135/2.8. I wound up sticking with a 58 for a lot of the time. Click "Next" in the upper right to begin going through the scans.

I also brought along my digital camera for taking some pictures of my car and of night hiking.