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| Pacific Crest Trail, Whitewater Canyon, Sonoran Desert, California |
Yesterday I turned 27. I wanted to celebrate my birthday by doing things that I enjoy to do. One of those things is hiking and exploring familiar and new natural environments. Since I was hired as a Naturalist for The Wildlands Conservancy, Oak Glen Preserve, I have been wanting to check out other preserves. I talked to my fellow naturalists, and we set a plan to visit the three desert concervancy preserves: Pioneertown Mountains Preserve, Mission Creek Preserve, and Whitewater Preserve. As the day came around, only three of us went on this amazing adventure. Julia, Ari, and myself. We met at Julia's house in Oak Glen, and carpooled out to the Sonoran Desert. We began our tour at the farthest preserve, Pioneertown Mountains Preserve, which is the largest non-profit nature preserve in California and the birthplace of The Wildlands Conservancy.
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| Olson Ruins, Pioneertown Mountains Preserve |
Pioneertown Mountains Preserve was amazing. We were in the middle of the desert away from it all. The vistas of volcanic buttes, granite mountains, and desert valleys were beautiful! We got to the preserve, and there was nothing really posted on the different things to see out on the preserve. Just signs of the different trails available. We saw a sign that said wetlands and Olson Ruins 1.7 miles away. We felt that would be a perfect hike. Not to long, so we can have time for the other preserves. The hike took us through the Pipes Canyon. It started off as your standard dry desert canyon. As we hiked into the canyon, the environment began to turn into a green wetlands. Young and old Joshua Trees, Chapparrel type plants, and Arroyo Willows that filled the air with a unique scent. The creek in the canyon had some water flow, which was most likely a result from the last rain storm that came through the area less than a week ago. The first suprising thing we can across were petroglyphs faded on a rock canyon wall. We would have completely missed it if it was not for Julia taking a small trail detour. As I was wondering why that small detour was there, I looked on the rocks and spotted them. No signs or anything were there to point them out. Probably to help protect it from vandalism. Did some research to see if I can get any information about this cultural sight. It has been found that what we found were petroglyphs drawn by the Chemehuevi People. This area was their traditional region before they were put on a reservation on the Colorado River. We did not get to experience much wildlife sightings at this preserve, except for a few small birds and one bird of prey. If it wasn't a cool and cloudy day, we may have seen some reptiles. A cold wind blew through the canyon. It didn't bother me except my face became numb after awhile. With time passing by, we almost turned around, but decided to go just a few more feet. We spotted the Olson Ruins on the right of the trail. It was mostly a corner of a building with one room standing. Again, no signs with information explaining what these ruins were. After getting a closer look at the ruins, we decided to head back. We ran into a few people headed back, which suprised us. They asked where they could find the petroglyphs. We explained that they passed them and told them how to find them. We enjoyed visiting this preserve. We could have spent the entire day souly exploring this area, but we wanted to explore other preserves. Next stop. Mission Creek.
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| Chemehuevi Petroglyphs |
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| Chemehuevi Petroglyphs |
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| Mission Creek Preserve Wetlands |
Mission Creek Preserve was off of Highway 62 just 4 miles north of I-10. Just like our last preserve, there was no information about the different sights that can be seen when out on the trail. We saw a sign telling us that Painted Hills and Wetlands were just 1 mile away. We headed into the canyon. The trail was mostly just an old road that was used before the conservancy aquired the property. As we got close to the mile mark, we have a very beautiful view of these hills that had layers of different sediment deposits that displayed dark reds, green, light brown colors. They were beautiful! We also came across some very beautiful large trees. We were unsure what type of trees they were, but they were displaying fall colors. A sight to see. We would have continued passed that, but we choose to turn around. We wanted enough time at Whitewater before it got dark.
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| Whitewater Preserve |
We saved the best for last. Whitewater Preserve became our most favorite visit of the day. Why did it make our top visit for the day? I think it was just the beautiful work done to preserve the old trout ponds and ranger station (which used to be a trout fishing farm). The sound of the water moving from pond to pond was super relaxing. The beautiful canyon walls next to the ponds added to the amazing sights. We spent a good amount of time looking at the trout and exploring the ranger station. We met one of the rangers who was Jose. He was very nice. He showed us photographs and captured videos of wildlife in the preserve. We were amazed! We really want something like this at our Oak Glen Preserve. The ranger station had displays about the area, the wildlife, and information about the conservancy. Something we all wished we had for our visitors to Oak Glen. After exploring that area, we headed north towards the Pacific Crest Trail. Our hope was to spot one of the Big Horned Sheep in that area. With the sun slowly setting, he hoped it would be the best time to spot one of these guys. We got to the Pacific Crest Trail, and decided to head north. It is just amazing to think that this trail (photgraphed above) goes to Mexico to the south and Canada to the north. We went up the trail at least a mile. We didn't get to see any large wildlife, but we did spot 5 cows grazing in the canyon. It was beginning to get dark and the temperature was dropping, so we headed back to the car. On the way back, we stopped for a few moments to listen to the area. We heard nothing. It was super quite. It was the theme with each of the preserves. We didn't hear much noise from any wildlife or evidence of human life. It was amazing! It is not very often that we get to expereince a type of quiet like this. In Oak Glen, we have cars, tons of wildlife making noise, and many people around. We don't get this quiet. We probably would have stayed and enjoyed the quietness but closing time was near.
We stopped at Ruby's Dinner on the way back to Oak Glen to stuff our faces. During dinner, we calculated that we had hiked a total of 8 miles between the three preserves. We felt accomplished. We all decided that we will have to do hikes more often, and hope more of our co-workers can join us. As we got back to Oak Glen, we chilled at Julia's place drinking hot mulled wine by the wood burning stove. This was a perfect day. One of the best birthdays I have had since my family trip to Catalina Island. All I can do is think about yesterday, and wishing I could do that every single day.
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| Julia, John, and Ari at Pioneertown Mountains Preserve |
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