A surprising amount of traffic on the Cima highway last night. Where were all those cars going? This road connects I-15 with I-40, but there are no services and little cell phone reception along the way. A scenic drive by day, by night it is just a very lonely highway. It’s a mystery.
A far greater mystery presented itself overhead. Empty country, clear desert skies and a late moonrise made for excellent sky watching. The slow wheel of the heavens turned while the occasional meteor streaked by. I lay astounded, my mind seeking and failing to grasp the immensity above. Our brains are good at dealing with rocks and trees and other people, but cannot take the measure of the stars.
Dawn on Cima Dome
In the morning I stopped at Cima–an old rail depot and crossroads–hoping to dump my water bottle and beer can trash. But the general store there was closed, perhaps permanently, and its owners had neglected to arrange for public trash disposal. My empties would just have to live at the bottom of my pack for a while.
I turned up the highway and walked a few miles along its pavement then turned west toward Cima Dome.
A small shrine along the highway
I was also turning into one of the great Joshua Tree forests in the Mojave. I read somewhere that Cima Dome supports more JTs than the entirety of Joshua Tree National Park.
Or at least it did. Last year’s Cima Dome fire torched 40,000 acres and more than a million Joshua Trees. The fire left the trees upright, but they were completely blackened and dead. I was walking through a graveyard.
A few miles along I came to Cut Spring, which had a bit of water. I filled up there, not willing to take my chances with Deer Spring further on and repeat my mistake of Piute Spring.
Filtering out the critters from Cut Spring
The dome is not an old volcano, but the result of a balance between wind and water erosion. It is almost perfectly circular, about ten miles in diameter. And surprisingly high. The dome doesn’t look like much from a distance, but the climb was a pretty good haul, 1500 feet of elevation gain from Cima.
I paused for a few photos at the summit and continued west. The way back down was dreary and dreadful, unending ranks of burnt Joshua Trees still upright, yuccas and cacti burnt to the ground.
The New York Mountains from Cima Dome
I did stop at Deer Spring, which had a good amount of water. It was hot, so I stripped down and treated myself to a bandanna bath and a sock wash.
Deer Spring. The water was cool and clear in between the clumps of algae.
From the base of the dome my route turned south and took me into the Cima Volcanic Field – cinder cone country. I finally passed the fire boundary and found the desert to be markedly greener here than at points east.
I followed the 2WD dirt road to the site of a lava tube. It was getting pretty hot, and I was hoping to climb in and cool off underground. I also brought my ukulele down in case the acoustics were good. Nothing like a lava tube jam session to liven up a hike.
Inside the lava tube
But the tube was a disappointment. It was kind of stuffy–not much cooler than topside and of course windless. The acoustics were strangely dead and swallowed up the sound of my uke. That made the tube even creepier than most caves and I was soon outside in the hot sun again.
The road is 2WD and for the first time on this trip I was being passed by cars and jeeps. One couple in an RV did stop and ask if I needed a lift or anything to drink. I replied that I had plenty of water but it was warm and unrefreshing and I would greatly appreciate anything cold. The woman ran back to her fridge and brought me a nice cold bottled water. I was hoping for a beer or soda, but was plenty happy to have cold water to drink.
Among the cinder cones
The rest of the day’s hike was pretty much a trudge. I descended below the Joshua Tree zone, and thus entered the “absolutely no shade anywhere” zone. The sun lit me up from the side as it approached the horizon without losing any of its intensity. I was tired but kept walking as laying down in the sun or huddling under my umbrella was not appealing.
So I kept walking until sunset, then stopped, rolled out my ground cloth and sleeping pad, stripped myself naked and lay down on the warm sand, watching the light drain from the sky.
The stars came out one by one, each in its expected place, each one a gift, each one still a mystery.
