Desert Views: Ryan Mountain

December 26, 2009

We are still in hiking mode instead of climbing mode. I had planned on climbing, but when Roy said he thought he would be able to belay me, if I climbed slow enough, I figured we'd stick with hiking. I had planned on Joshua Tree if we were climbing, so we stuck with that destination and decided to do one of the more popular hikes, Ryan Mountain. This is a hike of three miles round trip and it leads to a summit with some nice views.

Trail junction near the parking lot

The trail starts out from a fairly large parking lot and goes a short distance to "T" intersection. If you go to the left you'll end up at the Sheep Pass Group Campground. We took the trail to the right and up Ryan Mountain. The trail starts a steady but not too steep climb diagonally up the side of the mountain. From the trail you get some great views of the rock formations that Joshua Tree is so famous for.

We're gaining elevation and enjoying the views

One of my favorite views is of Saddle Rocks as you come around the corner. During the popular times of the year you will often see the rock climbers scaling the rock.

Saddle Rocks

As we continued up, we passed through some metamorphic rock that had some beautiful patterns to look at. We stopped just past a very rocky section of the trail, where the route through the rocks was threaded between the boulders. There was no other way to go and I couldn't help but notice that someone had placed a duck on the end rock. We joked about what the alternatives would be, step off the side for a nasty fall or climb up the cliffs on the uphill side, or take the obvious trail, hmmm, I wonder... .

Roy laughing in the face of danger

As the route curves around the mountain it goes into a wash and then up on a gentle slope that leads to the top. A few years ago this slope was burned and it's still noticeably more barren the rest of the surround landscape.

Burned area as we near the summit

Soon we are nearing the actual summit. It's easy to spot, since hundreds, if not thousands of people have each contributed a rock to a pile on the top. There is also a sign, just in case your not sure if you're on the top.

Nearing the summit

We have arrived

When we arrived on top, Roy went crazy and exhibited some bizarre behavior. He climbed up on the rock pile and started dancing. To be honest, I was more than a little frightened by this exhibition. Luckily he came to his senses and started acting like a normal tourist, looking at the views, taking pictures and all that sort of thing.

Roy dancing on the summit rock pile

Tourist taking pictures from the summit

After enjoying the summit for about fifteen minutes, we headed back down. The nice part about the hike down is that you don't have to stop to enjoy the views, since you are facing away from the hillsides most of the time.

Heading down with views of the Wonderland of Rocks in the distance

As we hiked down we saw several groups hiking up the trail. We had seen a solo hiker going down as we were going up, but now it was much busier.

More cars in the parking lot than when we started

Once back at the trail head we walked over to look at an Indian site. Fortunately there was a duck to mark the way. Roy thought it might have been an artistic endeavor.

Modern rock art

There is a park service sign pointing out the early man site and we went over and saw where a bedrock mortar, fire stained rock and a faint pictograph mark an overhanging boulder that would have made a nice camp site for the Indians.