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Friday, February 5, 2016

Mojave NP - Kelso Dunes

Hi Blog!

On Thursday, February 4, 2016, we left Twentynine Palms and Joshua Tree National Park and began our journey to Death Valley National Park. We decided to put a stop in along the way at Newberry Springs to give us a chance to visit the Calico Ghost Town, Rainbow Basin and the Mojave National Preserve. Our funky campground is on Historic Route 66 near Barstow. We are looking forward to getting out and about and discovering our new neighborhood.

On Friday, we made the drive over to Mojave National Preserve.  Located between I-15 and I-40, the preserve was established October 31, 1994 with the passage of the California Desert Protection Act by the US Congress. Mojave National Preserve is vast. At 1.6 million acres, it is the third largest unit of the National Park System in the contiguous United States. The Visitor's Center is located in the former Union & Pacific Kelso Depot:


Kelso Depot seems out of place in the middle of this vast desert. The restaurant and telegraph office each had three shifts, operating around the clock. This continued through the boom years of the 1940s, when Kaiser’s Vulcan mine caused Kelso’s population to grow to nearly 2,000. The closing of the mine coupled with diesel engines replacing steam resulted in the Union & Pacific moving jobs and families out of Kelso. The depot function ended in 1962, although the restaurant and boarding rooms were still in use. The advancement of diesel technology led to fewer and fewer crew members needing to eat or stay overnight, so in 1985 Union Pacific decided to close the Kelso Depot entirely.

With the passage of the California Desert Protection Act of 1994, the East Mojave National Scenic Area became Mojave National Preserve and the Depot passed into the hands of the National Park Service. Renovation of the Kelso Depot began in 2002. The building reopened to the public as the new visitor center for Mojave National Preserve in October, 2005.

After watching the park movie and gathering all sorts of maps and brochures, we sat down at the Kelso Depot lunch counter, affectionately known as "The Beanery," to discuss what we wanted to do next.


On our drive to the Visitor's Center, we saw the sign for Kelso Dunes and were excited to learn that there is a hiking trail that takes you right to the top of the dunes. The Kelso Dunes are notable for the phenomenon known as singing sand, or "booming dunes." Cool - let's go see if we can make the dunes boom! Here's Kathy at the start of the hike.


The higher we climbed into the dunes, the more sparse the vegetation became. Indian ricegrass holds on while the wind whips its blades drawing intricate designs in the sand.


We practically had this giant sandbox all to ourselves. We watched a couple of dudes with sand sleds make a few runs down the dunes, but by the time we got up toward the summit, they had already made their way back toward the parking lot, so we had the place to ourselves.


Sometimes as you are climbing up, you forget to turn around and look to see where you came from. The dunes don't seem as sandy when you look at them from behind.


The dark Granite Mountains stand in stark contrast to the largest field of eolian sand deposits in the Mojave Desert.


To reach the peak along the dune ridge, it was step up, slide back, step up, slide back. We used a number of the snowshoeing techniques we learned over the years. Here we are celebrating the half-way point up the ridge:


It was all uphill from here. Luckily for us, others had come before and "broken trail."


We each step, the sand shifted causing mini slow-moving avalanches. If you want to see this really cool effect, click the link to see the sandslide.


Enthusiasts typically climb to the top of the dunes and slide down slowly, generating a low-frequency rumble that can be both felt and heard. Unfortunately, the booming is much more pronounced when the dunes are extremely dry. With all the rain the region had received recently, try as we might, we could not hear or feel the boom!


We took our time enjoying the view. We contemplated trying to butt-slide down the steepest part of the dune, but let discretion be the better part of valor and left the steep slide to the dudes with the sand disks.


We were just happy to have made it to the summit!


If you would like to see what we saw, then click on this link: 360-degree view from the top of the dunes.

The hike back was much faster. Swooshing down sand dunes is a lot like glissading in your snowshoes. One big difference - the amount of sand in your shoes when you reach the trailhead!


On our drive into the park, we noticed several snow patches. We were overcome with the desire to stop and play in the snow, but decided to make our way to the Visitor's Center first. However, on the way out there was nothing holding us back.  We named this little snowman, "Mojave Jack" in honor of his location:


Did you ever thing your would see a snowman in the desert?

We are looking forward to getting back to the Mojave National Preserve next week. Stay tuned.

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