The government shut-down screwed my weekend...and a lot of other people's too.

If this is the best government that money can buy, then the lobbyists aren't getting their money's worth. 

Hundreds of thousands of federal employees and contractors are suddenly not working and not being paid, even though the nation's fragile economic recovery is just gaining steam, and even though the most economically important fiscal quarter of the year is just about to kick off, all because of an ideological push by a faction of one party to kill what they perceive to be an overwhelmingly unpopular law, parts of which are actually being enacted on this very day. The most inane and morally bankrupt lesson here is that the Tea Party Republicans are willing to let the government and it's non-essential functions cease putting something like 400,000 federal employees off work without pay or any clear understanding of when they will be able to return to work and support their families. This cadre of mental midgets will invite serious harm to our economic recovery, all so that they can try to sabotage a law that has already been passed into law by congress and signed as such by the president. That's real leadership. Just make your unwinnable point at the expense of the faceless American masses. Strong work. Another new low for this Republican congress. Just remember it was Obama who today signed an emergency funding bill so that military families and their dependents could still receive the pay and services they deserve despite this manufactured political crisis.
A downgrade in the nation's AAA credit rating? Tea Party Republicans.
Government shut down? Tea Party Republicans.
I could go on but this is not a political rag.

Nico, his girlfriend Heather, Jack Elliott and I were supposed to spend this coming weekend on Santa Rosa Island, Channel Islands National Park. Guess that ain't gonna happen, but my small inconvenience pales in the face of what others must be worrying about.

Native American Pictographs, Coso Range

To say that the area around Ridgecrest and China Lake NAWS contains a lot of rock art would be an understatement. Most of these sites are highly concentrated with pecked petroglyphs of numerous design. Pictographs (paintings) are more of a rarity in the region, and tend to be simple stick figures and shapes. Not so with this singular site. Polychrome red, yellow/orange, and black designs grace two sides of this immense boulder (I swear, if there weren't paintings on it I would have walked back to the truck and got my climbing shoes). Another neat aspect of this site are the thousands of pressure worked shards of obsidian scattered under foot (below), a clear sign of years of habitation.  This is a pretty special site, had a good vibe.

Whitney in a day and a shot at Mt Muir

I went to the East Side to climb Mt Muir. What I got was a taste of the coming winter, that and the summit of Whitney.

Not what you want to see when you're going up there. The East Side, from Lone Pine.

  Mt Muir is considered by the Sierra Club to be one of California's fifteen 14,000 summits. It is the first real prominence north of Trail Crest on the Whitney Trail, and the 300+foot scramble to the summit goes at a steep and exposed Class III. Regarding my failure to reach the top of Muir I will simply say that Class III is Class III until it's not, and in this case having two inches of powder snow on every climbing surface tipped my risk-reward ratio into the red. I spent a good hour fifty feet under the summit, trying to find a way. Rats. I'll just have to come back when it is snow-free. I gave up and went over to Whitney for some summit time.

My day on the trail went well, routine, unremarkable. It's a big, long day. Everybody knows this. My total time on trail came to 13:20. I think this was my 12th time on Whitney and 7th or 8th time on summit. 

Whitney Trail at the JMT

Where I got stalled and gave up on Muir.

Sure it's Class III, just not with snow all over it. Mt Muir.

Wind blown snow, Whitney Trail

Ice sickles on prayer flags, the Smithsonian Hut.

Desert Trippin'

Sunset on the desert

Ruth and I bolted out to the desert for the weekend, one night spent in the reputedly therapeutic mineral baths of Desert Hot Springs (DHS is where we met, 13 years ago. Yup, first time I laid eyes on my wife she was in a bikini. [insert shit-eating grin]) and a second night up the road in Joshua Tree, a place we know well.

Amniotic weather. Barking ravens, hushed owl tones. The schizoid yipping of coyotes at dusk. Dr Seuss trees twisting in hi-contrast silhouettes against hard pastels . Bitter tea honeyed. Scents of chamisa and mesquite, creosote. Flickering firelight cast on warped boulders. Diamond shards ripple and flash across the northern sky. Amorphous rock blobs respire, silver in the pale moon light.

Then a silence so pure it must be a dream.

JTree. Used to be a card carrying resident, but then I grew up.

The textures of the desert.

Desert Queen Ranch

Desert Queen Ranch. This is a year round spring.

Desert Queen Ranch

Desert Queen Ranch

Desert Queen Ranch

Desert Queen Ranch

Desert Queen Ranch

Desert Queen Ranch

Desert Queen Ranch, main house.

Desert Queen Ranch

Bill Keys left his mark on this land.

Desert Queen Ranch

Desert Queen Ranch

Desert Queen Ranch

Sunset in the Hi-Desert

The remains of this old stone cabin lie above the Silver Queen Mine.

Heavy monsoon rains the previous week had awakened millions of tiny yellow desert flowers.

Spiny. Venomous. Disastrous to pets and humans alike.
The North American Jumping Cholla (pronounced "Choya").
You haven't lived until you've spent most of a night, beer in one hand and pliers in the other, sucking on a cigarette under the lantern light while  pulling a passel of cholla needles out of your friend's leg,
your very inebriated and unlucky friend.

Ocotillo on the desert.

Hi-Desert Empty

Related post: Out of the shoebox, JTree

More photos at: Flickr