Panorama Loop, JTNP, CA

Well, after an extended hiking drought, this should be my Hike #28 for the year. Hike #27 was another short jaunt up to Mount Hollywood, which I won't separately blog since I've done it so many times.

There was a trail registry on top of Panorama Peak, so I went ahead and wrote in it, then placed it back where I found it. That's why we have two shots of a can on a rock. Apparently, I didn't face the can the same way as I found it, and I shot it from slightly different directions, but, close enough!

This trailhead is out of Black Rock Canyon campground, which you'd reach by taking Joshua Lane south, out of Yucca Valley. Joshua Lane is part of a signaled intersection in Yucca Valley. CA-62 goes east-west through town. Heading in from the north at this light, it's CA-247, also signed as "Old Woman Springs Road." Heading down to the south is Joshua Lane.

There is currently (as of August 24, 2026) substantial construction along Joshua Lane and some of the other roads south of CA-62, which slows the drive. Still, it's only about fifteen minutes from the Super 8 in Yucca Valley, to the Black Rock Canyon campsite.

I hiked Warren Peak in the spring (April 18, 2026), but never managed either a blog post or even a facebook post on my personal account. However, I did make mention of having made this hike, here, and I did find the photos I took. So there's a hike I need to go back and blog.

This trip, like most of mine here, wa in connection with a night of astronomy at Sky's the Limit. That part of my trip proved a little complicated, as my Skywatcher 350P had a major malfunction. Still, it's functional even without all the electronics as a perfectly usable 14" Dobsonian telescope. It just lacks goto and tracking, so it wasn't a total loss. People still got to see some pretty cool stuff. And after it was over, I used my Telrad and some patience to track down Comet Tempel 2, the 10th comet for which a periodic orbit was calculated. It was pretty faint and tiny, and probably would not have photographed well, which is good, because I forgot to bring my counterweight for my tracking equatorial mount. So the astronomy side of the trip was far from perfect, but still somewhat enjoyable, if not necessarily what I had planned.

The next morning, I got up, ate my breakfast, drank my coffee, and left the motel some time around 8:30am, later than intended. Parked near the nature center. Got started on my hike a little before 9am.

In the summer, a lot of the campsites are closed off, and the nature center up there is only open on the weekends, and closed for an hour for lunch in the middle of the day. Although it is part of Joshua Tree National Park, you are not required to pay an entry fee or display a permit to park in the day use areas.

There are several potential starting points for hikes here. I just headed south from the nature center, and started my hike at the south end of the campground. The trailhead was signed, with mileage indicators, and other signage along the way.

There's quite a bit of Joshua tree, juniper, and pinyon pine along the area, as well as lots of creosote. The area burned significantly not too long ago, so there are also areas of stading dead trees and what not. It's a slight incline, and somewhat sandy in places, but a quick walk, and, again, well-signed.

After about 1.8 miles, the trail splits. The next three miles or so is a large "lollypop" loop. If you go right (counterclockwise), you' shortly hit another right, which would take you to Warren Peak (WP, on the trail signs). To make it different, I headed left.

About halfway through that loop, the trail approaches, but does not ascend, Panorama Peak. But its location is obvious when you're there, and several use trails leave the main loop to head up to the summit. There are plenty of nice views along most of the loop.

Shortly before you finish the loop section, you've pass the Warren Peak trail, coming in from your left. If you have the time and inclination, you can add that as part of your day. As for me, because I still planned additional hiking or photography that evening, I just continued through the intersection, and walked back to my car.

When I got back to the nature center, it was closed for its 11am - noon lunch break. So I took a seat on one of the plastic Adirondack chairs on the porch of the nature center and ordered Subway. I had a perfectly usable cell signal from here. There's a Subway right at the 247-62 intersection, in a gas station, about as "on the way back" as it could be," so I could easily pick that up on the way back to the motel. Ordered two footlongs, on account of a coupon. Ate one for lunch, and saved the other half for either a later dinner, or to eat, the next day.

Just about seven miles for the day, including an extra 1/5 of a mile or so to walk down to the restroom near the nature center and back. 1,211 feet of verticle. Turned out this wiped me out pretty good, and I lacked the motivation for either astrophotography or a sunset hike. I did manage a short wander around the Desert Christ thing. Not sure if I'll blog that. We'll see.

Stuff Around Mesquite, NV

We left Cedar City on July 5, 2026, after two nights of astronomy outreach at Cedar Breaks National Monument, the highlight of which was a night of pretty nifty aurora borealis.

On return drives, I'm always torn between wanting to see "one more thing," and just wanting to get home. So among the things I didn't see on this trip was the largest American flag in the world, which was temporarily being displayed in Tuacahn, near Snow Canyon State Park. I also didn't do another trip to Red Cliffs National Conservation Area, to show my wife the little patch of dinosaur prints, there.

But, once safely through the Virgin River Gorge, I felt more relaxed. The Gorge is a place you don't want to get stuck in or on the "wrong" side of, because, depending on where there's an accident, if it's serious enough, it can shut down I-15 in either or both directions, and and leave you with no good way around it. An accident on many parts of I-15 can have that effect, but I-15 shut-down accidents seem to occur with higher frequency in or near the Gorge, because it's somewhat curvy, with an incline, so trucks can be moving much slower than cars want to drive.

Once south of the Gorge, there are two Pilot/Flying J truck stop in quick succession. One is on the Arizona Strip, north of Mesquite. The other one is just south of Mesquite. They're actually an "Eagles Landing," which is an affiliate of Pilot/Flying J, and operates several locations in southern Utah, the Arizona Strip, and southern Utah). I usually stop at the one south of Mesquite, which is on Lower Flat Top Drive. From there, my first detour was within a few miles of that location.

Two miles northeast of the Pilot, on Lower Flat Top, is a collection of carvings (the first of which, I think, was the "Little Mount Rushmore" one). They're actually pinned on Google maps, now. Unfortunately, "Little Mount Rushmore" has eroded to the point of not really being recognizable. But there have been many additions, including "Crazy Horse" and a mostly-buried "Statue of Liberty."

There's also some interesting ideas, including the banana taped to a wall art piece, and a reproduction of the "Falling Man" pictoglyph. Many are done very well, while others are not.

"Little Mount Rushmore" is about two miles northeast on Lower Flat Top Drive from the FLying J, just east of a road called "Witwer Trail," and across the steet from a trail parking area. In this area, as of now, Lower Flat Top Drive is one lane in each direction, with a large median, and a wide parking area with a curb on either side of the road. A surpising number of people were stopping along the road to look at these. Well a surprising number, considering the normal traffic on this road, which isn't a shortcut to anything.

My wife and I actually drove by here by accident, a number of years ago. I-15 was backed up, and so, from my usual gas/bathroom break location, my GPS navigation sent me down Lower Flat Top Road. Couldn't believe what we saw!

You can walk along the shoulder, or just stop your car repeatedly along the way. In the summer, when it's hot, this might be the more common way to experience it.

After some wandering around here, we continued south on I-15, toward Nevada. My fitbit told me I hadn't taken enough steps that hour, so I pulled over, at what I think was the third truck parking area on southbound I-15, south of Mesquite. It's at Mile Marker 96. If you reach the Logandale/Overton Exit 93, you've gone too far.

At the truck parking area, there is a closed but unlocked, unsigned (not labeled as "No Trespassing" or "Tribal Land" or anything) gate. There is a sign that says "Keep Gate Closed." So I opened the gate, drove through, then closed the gate.

On the other side is a gravel road, one of which parallels the highway, and heads towards a hill with a number of antenna, to your southwest. I drove slowly that way. Passable with my Camry, but some places had rocks that would scrape the bottom of the car, if I wasn't careful. So I drove carefully.

Where the road starts turning to the right and climbing the hill, the road looked a little iffy, so I pulled over and parked, there. This was after about 1/2 mile of driving. Then it was maybe 1/4 of walking along the road, until I could see the arrow.

I later found this post, on "Avoiding Regret," one of the blogs I read, on occasion. The irony is that "Avoiding Regret" also mentions the Donkey Museum, which she apparently did not write up in her blog, but did write up on facebook.

So follow those links for more information on the navigation arrows. Otherwise, that's all I've got for my drive back from Cedar City. Collectively, the Cedar City and Mesquite stuff was Hike 26 for the year. Been in a bit of a hiking lull, since then.

Aurora Over Cedar Breaks NM, UT!

I spent the Fourth of July weekend in Cedar City. The evenings of July 3rd and 4th, I went up to Point Supreme to support their night sky program. I also took a short hike during the day on July 4th. And I stopped and saw a few things on the drive back down towards Las Vegas, on July 5th. I just have stuff from the 3rd and 4th, here.

The main thing to report was that there was a pretty nice display of the northern lights (aurora borealis) on the night of July 3, 2026, and the early morning of July 4, 2026. In real-life, the color is not nearly as apparent, or as intense, but the curtains and pillars of light were easily visible, and hints of tint, mostly reds and greens, were faintly visible.

These shorts were taken with my Samsung S25 phone, ISO 1600, 15 second exposures. I had no dslr on this trip, and no tripod, so I just leaned my cell phone on top of a stone fence brace, with a spare power source to hold it up. As a result, the shots were at odd tilts, and I had to correct the tilt in post-production.

A daytime view from the same area gives you an idea of the skyline you're looking towards. This is from Spectra Point (near the visitor center), looking north. The aurora were active from about 10:30pm until after midnight.

The intensity of the displays came and went, and appeared to travel right to left. It was several hours of great excitement, as I had never seen significant aurora before, and definitely not with a modern camera handy. This doesn't sate me from wanting to go somewhere further north, where it would be more impressive, but at least I got an idea of what to look for.

Because I was up so late on the 3rd, I wasn't much motivated for a long walk on the 4th, so I just did the Alpine Pond Loop, and the link between Chessman Ridge Overlook, and the north Alpine Loop trailhead. There's a master plan that create a "North Rim" trail, all the way from North View to Spectra Point, but, unfortunately, we're not there, yet. So just a bit over two miles of walking there. But I got way more than a mile more for the day, hauling my telescope stuff from the parking lot at Spectra Point and back. It's two roundtrips to take stuff out and two to take stuff back, and usually a few more as I go back and forth between the car and the observing point, getting lined pants or dropping off things I don't need.

This past year was a near-record low snowfall, so the wildflowers came early. A lot of the areas that would still be greening out were already past-peak. Still plenty of other flowers among the forested areas, but the big fields were not in bloom, unfortunately. By comparison, while the fields I saw were mostly spent, here's what they looked like, three weeks later on the calendar, a few years ago.

As previously noted, sill lots of flowers in the forested areas. Lots of Colorado columbine, various lupine, purple penstemon, a few Indian paintbrush, and other flowers, not pictured.

Didn't go on the paved trails that run from the administrative building towards Spectra Point, because I was pretty sure it was all going to be spent flowers, there. Just satisfied myself with a little walk along a flower-lined path, and a walk by of the Alpine Pond, before heading back down into town, to eat and rest, before returning for the astronomy program, later that night.

During the summer season, Cedar Breaks has an astronomy program every Friday and Saturday. Obviously, different experiences if you go when the moon is up versus when it is not. Fourth of July was near third quarter moon, so it rose late, and was pretty dark during both observing periods. But dark comes late at this latitude, so the best viewing was well after we started.

The night of the third was a little chilly, but the cold went away when we were distracted by the aurora, at least for us, who were still there. The vast majority of visitors left before we noticed the aurora, which is a shame.

The Fourth of July, by contrast, was warmer, and more visitors stayed longer to enjoy the telescope views. We could also see the higher-launched fireworks that went off in Cedar City. Their show ends with an explosive disposal of excess aviation fuel, apparently. That was a pretty bright and startling sight. So each night was a very different experience.

No other hikes on this trip, though I had considered a number, including a return to Spring Creek Canyon Wilderness Study Area, near Kanaraville. Also, in retrospect, having seen how low the water was in the lower stretches of Ashdown Creek, should probably have taken advantage of that by exploring Ashdown Gorge, too. But got too lazy. Combination of late night and hot day.

To partially make up for that, we hit a couple of minor attractions on the drive back down, which I will probably post, next.

Likely coming back to Cedar Breaks for the Southwest Astronomy Festival, in the same capacity. Possibly colder, then (it's in mid-September). But if you know about the temperature difference at 10,000 feet, and dress accordingly, it can still be a load of fun.

Carbon Canyon Regional Park and Chino Hills State Park

Hiked June 22, 2026. Hike 25 for the year.

I had the idea that I wanted to come back here for a while, but, even this weekend, I had a hard time managing that. So it wasn't until Monday, June 22, that I made it down here.

Right after I left home, I realized I didn't have a broad-brimmed hat for sun protection, and my sunshirt did not have a hoodie to pull around my face and neck. So I was thinking my hike here might be minimalist, just around Carbon Canyon park to get my three miles. Only if I could find a hat would I continue, further.

So, from the south parking lot, I followed the signs to the Redwood Grove. This is also the Coyote Pass trail. I would estimate somewhere around 1/2 mile to get there, maybe less, and pretty flat, but also shadeless, until you get to the actual redwoods.

Once there, there's a nice trail, lined by a wooden fence. That's to keep walkers on a specific path, and prevent overall compaction of the ground around the redwood trees. Also, there is an underground irrigation system, to help keep the tree roots wet without turning the surface marshy.

Despite the fencing, I'm sure plenty of ignorant people trample all over the roots and irrigation system, nonetheless, but this reduces that, at least.

These redwoods were planted back in 1975, and somehow trace back to a bank promotion (it's unclear which one). Back in the 1970s, this being closer to the original Earth Day, a number of local banks would give away redwood seedlings to customers who opened new savings account, so you could watch you tiny weekly additions grow into a mighty savings balance. Or something.

Now 51 years, and up to 100 feet tall, it's a pleasant walk. On a Monday, it's also pleasantly empty, though hardly a solitary wander.

From the redwoods, I wandered further south, eventually crossing a dry waterway, then the dam spillway, then the dam, where I then turned west, along the dam top. It's an earthen dam, with a normal spillway standing as a tower in the impound area.

From the end of the dam, I walked around the fencing (as intended, as far as I can tell), then headed north, looping along the west end of the park, then headed east.

As I got back near the Carbon Canyon Road entrance, near the kiosk, I saw a building that seemed like it might house a giftshop or book store. But, no it was just an administrative office, and a ranger to ask questions of.

But, already being where I was, I figured I'd wander on east, to the Chino Hills State Park parking area, where, based on a recent trip, I knew there was a gift shop, and was pretty sure I saw floppy hats the last time I was there.

It's a pretty dry approach, and the entire park now is pretty dry. There are some trees and shrubs. The most dynamically growing shrub appears to be poison oak, however. So make sure you know what that looks like before going off the pavement!

In any event, the gift shop there did have both big floppy hats with the state parks logo, or ball caps, with the same. The big floppy hat was only about $25, which, for the kind of store it was, I think is a bargain. By contrast, the last ball cap I bought at Griffith Observatory was over $36, with an employee discount!

Had I failed to find a hat, I would have just returned to my car. But, now, armed with better sun protection, I plotted a longer hike. Saw a point labeled "Glider Point." Sounded good.

This had me heading initially just east, on the Telegraph trail. Same trail I was on in a previous hike. But, this time, after about 1 1/2 miles, I turned right, up the Diemer Trail, then left, on the South Ridge Trail. That leads to the east, with Yorba Linda to your right, and the rest of Chino Hills State Park on your left.

Another mile and a half or so to Glider Point (not signed on the ground), then a bit further east, to the Easy Street trail, which heads north, towards Telegraph Trail.

That segment headed towards Gilman Peak, and provided a scenic view for much of the way. There were a lot of tall dead reed-like stalks, with dried up, presumable dead snails still attached. That part wasn't so scenic.

Once back on the Telegraph Trail, it was an easy three miles or so back towards Carbon Canyon Park.

This time, like last time, I chuckled as I walked by the side canyon with the poles, and figured those must be where the telegraph line that gave the canyon its name must have been.

The contrast between summer Chino Hills and Spring or winter Chino Hills is pretty dramatic. Fortunately, the weather was still not too summer-like, so the hike wasn't too tough, despite the distance.

Drank some water and used the restroom at the Chino Hills State Park Discovery Center (closed, by now, but the restrooms were still available), then continued to Carbon Canyon, which also has plenty of drinking water and restrooms. There' s fair sized lake, which I assume has fish. One fair sized group of Canada geese were hanging out as I headed to my car, and a smaller number of ducks were also seen.

11.21 miles for the day, and over 800 feet of altitude gained. That was in regular athletic shoes, since I forgot to toss my hiking boots in the way. Longer than I had planned for, but worked out well. I saw and photographed the redwoods, and also saw some additional areas of Chino Hills State Park that I hadn't walked, before. There are additional areas in the southeast of the park that I still need to visit, but I'll probably wait until fall or winter for that.

Nearly no hikers seen on this hike, but, again, it was a Monday. Fair number of mountain bikers. Good way to spend the day. I was happy.