Ryan Ranch Sunset

 Ryan Ranch in Joshua Tree National Park has a fascinating history. Here's a quck snippet:

 

The Ryan brothers homesteaded at this loction to take advantage of a natural spring that was once active here. The water was essential to the Lost Horse Mine, which they co-owned. Ryan Ranch supported the mining operation, pumping water 3.5 miles to the mine, in addition to processing ore and serving as a mining office and home. The cattle raised here helped feed the family and workers. Some 60 people lived at the ranch and mine during the gold boom. By 1908 full-time operation of the mine had ceased and the Ryans turned their attention to cattle ranching, until the establishment of Joshua Tree National Monument halted grazing.

 

Walking around Ryan Ranch is like stepping back in time. These old adobe walls are all that remain of the original ranch house. 

 

 

 

 

Close up of adobe wall. It looks like there is straw in the mixture!

 

A second, smaller adobe structure was once here.

 

Anyone missing a motor?

 

 

Looks like a storage structure of some kind.

Largest water tank at Ryan Ranch

A newer structure, probably built in the 50's.

 

Joshua tree "forest".

 

 

 

 

Imagine sitting among the Joshua trees in total solitude, watching the pastel sky slowly and silently deepen. The transition is subtle; before you know it, darkness takes over, shifting the horizon to a rich, deep blue as the stars begin to spark to life.

 

Side note: These last 4 photos (two above, two below) were taken with my cell phone. All were taken 30-45 minutes after sunset when things were getting quite dark. They were taken without a tripod, and I was expecting a blurry mess, but somehow they turned out quite nicely and relatively sharp. Amazing! Related note: The Hasselblad X2D II 100C has 10-stop in-body image stabilization. Hasselblad claims you can take perfectly sharp images in the dark!! I'm not throwing out my tripod yet (the Hasselblad camera body alone costs nearly $8,000), but the technology keeps getting better and better. It won't be long before a tripod is no longer needed except for special circumstances like astrophotography.

 

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Strawberry Moon

 I happened to be out in the Joshua Tree area during the nearly full moon in June (AKA Strawberry Moon) so of course I had to make time for some photography! I was a day or two early, but to my eye, the moon looked pretty full. There's a large rock formation out near Ryan Ranch called "Headstone Rock", and that was my destination.

Headstone Rock is hard to miss. It juts up high above the Joshua trees, and is just a short hike from the main road. It's a massive boulder, and the pictures don't do it justice (unless you get lucky and get a photo that includes a crazy rock climber in the process of climbing it). In addition to trying to get a picture of the moon rising next to Headstone Rock, I also wanted to scope it out as a possible Milky Way foreground.

 

I decided to make this my home base. I like the way the Joshua trees frame Headstone Rock. I set up my tripod and didn't move it for the rest of the afternoon and evening. I was hoping the moon would rise adjacent to and over the top of Headstone Rock. And if I had the patience, I could get some shots later in the evening of stars overhead.

 

8:45PM: Well, not bad, but as the moon rose higher, it also moved off to the right, away from Headstone Rock. I guess that's why they call them "plans"! In this photo the moon looks more like a sunburst for some reason.

 

 

 

 

The two photos above: Strawberry Moon, June 2024

 

Not my best selfie. Weird diagonal horizon!

 

 

The stars never really made much of an appearance. Should be no suprise, since a full moon will make the stars much less visible. So I decided to head home, feeling satisfied with my Strawberry Moon photos. Driving through the park, I couldn't resist a little detour. Have you ever wondered what driving the backroads of Joshua Tree National Park would be like at night in an open air Jeep with a full moon? If you answered yes, be sure to check out my video below. What the heck, go ahead and watch it even if you didn't answer yes! Oh, and I don't drive the back roads this fast. The video speed is set to 2X.

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Bird Skull Rock

 I've posted about Bird Skull Rock before, most recently in July of 2023. It's one of my favorite rock formations in Joshua Tree National Park, and it's oriented nicely for night photography. We arrived a bit before sunset and the sky was putting on a beautiful show!

 

 

 

 

8:13pm "blue hour" with small lights inside the "eyes".

8:41pm: Kind of eerie looking! Are you going to be staring at me all night like that??

The Milky Way will be up and in a good position around 1am, so we decide to try to get a few hours of sleep, and set our alarms for 12:45. I'm worried about the cloud cover that's been moving in and out might end up blocking our view of the MW. 

 

Beep beep beep... The alarm goes off and I'm not sure either of us got any sleep, but we tried!

Just a piece of the MW is visible, but even so, the combination of clouds and stars is beautiful! It's been a fun night, and we decide to try to get more sleep and hike back to the car in the morning (vs. hiking back around 2am in the dark). It turned out to be a good decision.

 

If the sky had been clear, here's what the Milky Way would have looked like:

I took this photo 7/2023.

 

Anyway, it turned out to be an exceptionally pretty sunrise, so glad we opted to spend the night!

 

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Mystery Cave

 Years ago, someone told me about a cave in a very remote area in Joshua Tree National Park. He mentioned there were signs of digging, and even a metal screen nearby (likely used to sieve through sand). It was upsetting, as the "evidence" pointed to someone digging up and looting the cave (which is obviously illegal in a national park). But digging up what? It was a mystery. He shared the location with me. I marked it on Google Earth and forgot about it. Until just recently, when I found myself hiking in the area.

This area is full of interesting rock formations with shallow caves and alcoves.

Inside, looking out.

 

These lines in the rock are so interesting. Geologists call them dykes or dikes. These particular dykes look like they were made by a master stonemason, who carefully placed rocks side by side! They extend all the way over to the shallow cave on the left side of the photo.

 

 

We spot another cave.

This one is quite large inside and unique looking, with a hanging rock wall. It also has the appearance of human hands stacking rocks off to one side to improve the shelter.

Finally we find "mystery cave". Although it may be hard to see in the photo, there is indeed a big berm of sand directly in front of the cave opening. It's obvious someone has done a lot of digging.

My friend Nadine gives perspective to the size of the cave opening.

Inside, the cave is deeper and more spacious than I anticipated. Although it's tempting, I don't do much poking around because I don't want to disturb the soil (hantavirus). It's obvious a lot of burning has been going on in this cave, perhaps for many years. I've never seen rocks with such heavy soot deposits.

The soot is so heavy that it looks like tar in some areas.

Wire mesh found just outside the cave.

So we have a cave with clear signs of substantial digging, and huge soot deposits. The combination of digging and wire screen means someone, perhaps years ago, was sifting the dirt dug from inside the cave, looking for something. But what? My first guess would be this cave was used as a storage site for Native Americans. Perhaps there was an olla for water or grain storage in the cave. There could have also been grinding stones and pottery sherds. Or possibly this cave was used as a small shelter by Native Americans, which might help explain all the soot. I guess it's even possible that this was an old burial site. It's likely this is another one of those desert mysteries that will never be solved!

It's turning into an absolutely gorgeous golden hour! As the clouds move by, the light on the Coxcomb Mountains is constantly changing. I decide to use my iPhone for a time lapse video. This is where we make camp for a few hours while we wait for the stars.

 

 

 

Nadine enjoying the beautiful sky!

 

I think it was worth the wait. A beautiful mix of clouds and stars!

 

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