Kelly has been on two camping/photo trips this spring, one to the low desert (Anza Borrego) and one the high desert (Joshua Tree). I accompanied her to the former at the end of March, and Linda accompanied her to the latter at the beginning of April. As anyone from SoCal knows, this was a very wet winter and early spring. The desert sand soaked up a decent portion of that rain, and wildflowers resurrected themselves following five very dry years.

Palm Canyon Creek was flowing, and the trail has been re-routed and refurbished finally, following a massive flood in 2004. So we hiked that trail our first morning. We later stumbled and fumbled our way to The Slot, which I had never heard of in all our previous trips. Kelly found a lovely little Horny Toad at the top of The Slot.

Linda and Kelly entered Joshua Tree the following week from its south entrance at Cottonwood Visitor Center. This part of the park is lower, and usually displays more desert wildflowers. They weren't disappointed. The reptile du jour here was the chuckwalla.

This Joshua Tree trip was so impressive, and the weather remained cooler than usual for May, so Mark "dragged" Linda back there a few weeks later. There was more snow on San Jacinto and San Gregornio, more desert blooms, and more reptiles awakening from their winter hibernation, one of which was a western diamondback rattler, the first one we have ever seen in the high desert. So here a compilation of four desert trips rolled into one.