Joshua Tree

Ask any cactus. Times are hard and when the rain comes, you'd better soak it up fast. In the Mojave Desert, barrel cacti have accordion folds which bevel as the plants swell with water.

On a sunny day in late December, Mark and I went on our first hike in Southern California's Joshua Tree National Park. We saw agaves with curled whiskers and silver cholla cacti. My immediate favorite was the park's namesake. To me, Joshua trees looked a bit like coral à la Dr. Seuss. In the mid-nineteenth century, Mormons traveling westward to Utah, likened their branches to the biblical story of Joshua reaching his arms to the sky in prayer. As always, you see what you want to see.

"How's the trail up ahead?" I asked the lone man hiking towards us.

"Nothing spectacular," he shrugged.

Why was the man underwhelmed? Mark and I got a kick out of speculating. Could the rest of the trail be completely featureless? Unlikely. Maybe the hiker's buddy bailed on him. Maybe he had blisters. Perhaps the desert scenery had lost its novelty. One thing was certain - as the third person we saw on the trail in four hours, his gripe was not with overcrowding.

We hiked each day of our vacation and as I became more familiar with Joshua Tree's giant rock formations and wiry shrubs, my admiration for the harsh land only intensified. We had a staggering view of the parched valleys from atop Ryan Mountain. Another day we scrambled over boulders in a dry riverbed, eating lunch perched on a massive rock. Inspired, I attempted to capture the landscape with watercolors. Mark turned his boulders into a monster.

Sunsets were glorious explosions of peach and crimson, but for me, the dread that followed was palpable. Darkness. As soon as night fell, the temperature plummeted to just above freezing. We assumed comically traditional gender roles: Mark would make a fire while I got dinner started on the camping stove. Even wearing multiple layers with four shirts and a fleece under my jacket, soon it became too cold to be awake. It seems winter isn't really the best time of year for camping, even in Southern California.

I was struck by my profound emotional shift between night and day. Days were filled with good conversation and a feeling of extreme privilege to be in such a beautiful part of the world. Nights were long and challenging. However, we were rewarded with apocalyptic sunrises, viewed through the opened tent door, swaddled in our sleeping bags like caterpillars.

Most visitors to America's national parks experience the swaths of protected land from the comfort of their cars. At 19, I drove through Yellowstone, my “hiking” largely limited to wheelchair accessible walkways. Obviously we get more out of an experience when we interact at ground level. To me this means pushing myself to chat with locals in a village cafe instead of taking photos from the safety of the bus. But I wonder if this philosophy is even more relevant for subtle, natural ecosystems. Driving, you see Joshua trees and outlandish rock formations. On the trail, you notice coyote footprints in the sand and bite marks in cacti.

When I am more aware of my surroundings, I feel present in the moment and this often makes me happy. However, each night camping I became a cold, sad animal, unable to remind myself that this was a temporary state of being.

We had already been asleep in the tent for hours when folks at the neighboring campsite started yelling.

"Happy new year!"

Such welcome words. I know I'm not the only one who was glad to say goodbye to 2009. Just like a trying night in the desert, this too shall pass. When times are difficult, as they continue to be for so many of us, perhaps we need to find ways to keep slowly growing in the sun's warmth and when the rain comes, be ready to soak it all in.