JOSHUA TREE, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A.

2013-06-13, 14:33, JASON

STAY: JOSHUA TREE CAMPSITE

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We were leaving southern California, right? As a result we decided to do something we’ve been talking about doing for the longest time: go to Joshua Tree. This is immediately following a drunken night in the Gaslamp district of San Diego.. so some madness possessed us.

A couple of weeks prior, we had bought a tent that we also said we were going to use, but never did, so I guess camping was a good start. The tent was super cheap, dinky, and sold as a single season tent (which we believe meant it could only hold up to light snoring). However, we had set it up as a dry run in our living room/bedroom/kitchen (we had a studio) and it did not blow away despite Thorin’s heavy snoring and Jason’s gas. This left us optimistic, that it could withstand natural disasters. This also left us with the confidence of rookie Amazon reviewers as well.

BUT.. who knew the tent had to withstand outdoor conditions? We arrived in Joshua Tree and the first thing we did was set up our tent in the remote Ryan Campground located in Joshua Tree National Park. To our left, we see the glamorized lifestyle of horse campers, two to a stable, and one tie-dye shirt on a woman whose sole lovers are horses. To our left, a decked out campsite with coolers, a tres chic gazebo, and a car out of batteries because they had been blasting some sort of Andrea Bocelli or what not. Needless to say, we were the most thrifty campers. Just us, and our trusted Amazonian tent. After the pitch, we went for a short hike to Hall of Horrors (maybe hall of terrors.. can’t seem to recall and seems less alliterative) to climb some interesting rock formations. Some guy made it to the very top in jeans and yelled that there was a huge hole at the top. Not only that, he proceeded to yell at his family — who did NOT climb the rocks — near the base of the mountain. By the end, we hadn’t made it up to the hole in the top, but we severely wished that he’d fallen through. I suppose that was the “horror” of the site.

So just two men walking through the desert back to our campground, and what do we find?? Our one-season tent capsized even with a sleeping bag weighing it down! Shortly thereafter, we weren’t really ‘blown away’ with the quality of our tent.. but it was still cozy for two.

Upon waking up from a nap that lasted longer than expected, we had our eyes set on a prize. They called it Lost Horse Mine (which Jason insists on calling Horse Mill, we don’t know why), but we called it the Promised Land. With ambition and tenacity, we departed at 18:00 in search of Troy. We get walking, using this crappy state-funded drawn map of the Park which announced no more than 8 trails in the entire park. Later, we found out with accord to our initial suspicion that this map was neither drawn to scale nor published by any thinking thing. Descartes wept. Following our guided map tour, we should have been two inches away from our campsite but instead we treaded 4 miles off-course towards nowhere, with only our proprioceptic intuition as to where our campsite was. The sun was setting soon.. and we thought we would not make it back in time. The real tragedy, however, was to forgo our journey to the Promised Land.

It’s near sunset. Thorin looks at me and I look at him, then tacitly, we both look at the mountain between us, and our campsite.

“Let’s just cut across the mountain, or we won’t make it in time,” said Jason.

“OK. Lez do it” Thorin said with fervor.

This decision.. might have been possibly simultaneously the worst yet the most memorable. In the proceeding hour that ensued, we were climbing across burned brush and thorny tree stumps, treading along in our tennies across the foot of the desert mountain with aimless direction. With us, our tank-tops and soccer shorts against the bustling desert wind. Our camera, sealed in our tiny tote bag. Our water, 3/4 full of a one gallon tank.

The base wasn’t that bad; we just had to maneuver through the foliage. Now, if that had been the whole hike, that would’ve been good. The sun was setting.

“We have to just go straight through, not beat around the bush”

“OK,” Thorin said again..

..and we began the longest most strenuous climb of our life. All fours (a position familiar to us) up a gravely mountainside with the occasional Joshua Tree and strewn with boulders. I literally kicked the shit up from beneath my feet and misplaced it in Thorin’s face, but he never complained. We were climbing up this feat of a mountain with nothing but the regret of our decision. It tasted bitter, like our tears that had glacially streamed into the inseam of our mouth. Every step further, and one more painful than the other. The sun was setting.

We took a break. I turned around to see Thorin’s dust-ridden face. In a fog of dust, the most beautiful landscape I had ever seen. It didn’t last long. Two sips of water, back on the mountain.

Still stepping, it never seemed to end. Thorin pulled ahead and grunted, with hardly any energy left to ejaculate as previously done so. Each ejection became drier, and drier, and direr, while the sun kept lowering, til its crepuscular rays vanished beyond the desert horizon.

We rested one more time. The beautiful landscape was now haunted by a chilly night in the Joshua Tree Desert.

“JASON…. WE’VE FOUND A TRAIL”

And we had never been so relieved to see evidence of human disturbance in a natural setting. Eureka! There was a hiking trail. The next sound we heard was quite possibly the most sonorous melody you could hear at a mountaintop that you assumed was only you and your best friend: a human voice.

Turns out, we made it to the top of Ryan Mountain via it’s sloped backside. Strangely enough, 10 paces to our left, the actual sign that marked it peak. It congratulated us, and the sign was a sign of our journey’s termination.

We ate well — and drank well — that night. Very, very well. And, our tent was stil upright. The desert landscape had restored its beauty and we were humbled under the expansive starry sky.

P.S. Upon further scientific analysis, Thorin hypothesizes that the tents shape and position was maintained by Jason Degeneracy Pressure, wherein the gas produced inside the tent during our nap created an equal pressure to the incident wind outside. Smelly, but effective. Jason refutes this on the basis of no basis of evidence.