My son had the day off and wanted to go on a hike out to Devil's Punch Bowl. Devil's Punch Bowl is about 50 miles away as the crow flies, but it's on the desert side of the mountains thus it's roughly a 100 mile drive to get there. First we needed gas. OH MY GOODNESS........
We jumped off the freeway and took a nostalgic ride along old historic Route 66. Do you remember the old TV series?
We are in San Andreas Fault country. In the Cajon Pass, northwest of San Bernardino, are some interesting rock formations. Compression and shearing along the San Andreas fault resulted in the tilting and surfacing of these sandstone rocks called the Mormon Rocks.
A common tree here in the Mojave desert is the Joshua Tree.
And a common plant is this prickly rascal.......
The location of Devil's Punch Bowl overlooks part of the vast Mojave Desert. It was pretty hazy today.
The Devil's Punch Bowl is the result of two faults that meet and they created this 300' high rock cliff that is very popular for climbers. We are at roughly 4,200' elevation here and we will hike down to the bottom of those rocks where there is a small stream. It was a great day for a hike. Clear skies and roughly 82 degrees.
While hiking down we came across this unusual rock. It looked like a hamburger bun. It's about 6' in diameter.
The mountain sides are covered with a Manzanita, a very attractive shrub with blood red bark.
We are now at the bottom of those 300' rocks where there is a small stream. My son, pictured below, has been here several times and said this is the least amount of water he has seen in the stream.