Stirrup Tank Lookout

Like most of my hikes, this one doesn't follow any established trails. After following a lonely desert road in Joshua Tree National Park for about a mile or two, I ended up at a small sandy parking lot in the Stirrup Tank area. From there, it's just rocks and open desert. There are no established trails in the area that I know of.

I'd been studying Google Earth after my First Visit to the area and was anxious for a second hike. I noticed an area that looked like a ramp (yellow arrow above) that dropped off steeply to one side. Rocks on the left, rocks on the right, but this "ramp" looked like a smooth ascent up to what I was hoping would be a beautiful, elevated lookout point. The blue lines on the map (above) are my actual hiking tracks. I ended up hiking a ways past my designated lookout point because things got really interesting. But I'm getting ahead of myself!

Of course, as I've said before, things look much different when you're on the ground in the desert vs. at home looking at GE on your computer! My smooth ramp turned out to be steep and rocky, but still doable. On the map above, you can see the red line I followed heading up the "ramp" to the lookout point (circle/arrow).

On the hike around the rocks over to the "ramp" area, I was treated to some nice open desert views (two photos above). In the first photo above, I'm pretty sure one of those hills on the far horizon is the Crown Prince Lookout. At this point, I'm really enjoying the hike. After getting a short distance away from the parking area, I didn't see a single person for the rest of my hike.

Just before getting to the ramp, I spotted some large boulders that looked interesting, so went over to check them out. It looked like they would provide pretty decent shelter and shade in a pinch.

Let's take a closer look:

Wow, very cool! A remote shelter with fire ring. I have no idea how old it is, but the soot on the rock indicates the fire ring has been used.

Going a little deeper into the "Fire Ring Shelter", this is the view out the other side. A nice, comfy shelter!

Still heading up the "ramp" at this point in my hike, but these are the views that I was hoping for! Interesting how the Joshua trees seem to lean in to the hill.  

Finally at the top of the "ramp", things are leveling out and the views seem to go on forever!

Exploring beyond the lookout, the rock formations are beautiful and interesting, and the area had that remote feel. It's likely that this area sees very few visitors. Only one problem: The sun was setting (you can see the horizontal light in my shadow selfie) so I had very little time to explore or I would be hiking home in the dark!

Mohave Yucca and a huge view!

Nice little rock shelter.

Sharp Tooth rock??

Nope, not going to name this one. Use your imagination!

Mojave Yucca sunset.

Linking with Skywatch Friday.

 Hope you enjoyed joining me on this desert hike.
Thanks for stopping by!!