It was winter break, so my dad and I planned to go to Pinnacles national park on dec. 25th. In the morning, we got up early, ate our breakfast and were going to leave, but before we were in the car my dad said balconies cave (Pinnacles) was closed. We decided to go to Joshua tree national park instead. At that moment, I noticed the park was 7 hours away!! The trip was long but fun. We had already booked a hotel at home. When we reached the city of San Bernardino County, the first thing we did was to go into our hotel (super 8). Inside it we thought we would do a 1 mile hike in the park. My dad said it was 40 minutes away. I did not want to sit in that car again so I said No I don’t want to go. The rest of the day I watched something called X games, which is a leader board of who can do the most epic tricks to win a gold medal! I watched that the whole night!

To Joshua National Park

The next day I got up and went to the breakfast room. I ate bread with jam & egg, and corn flakes. After that we went straight to Joshua tree national park. We reached in 45 minutes. We started a hike called arch rock. In that hike, we climbed some rocks and took pictures. The hike was 0.3 miles long.  We reached arch rock in a while. I climbed up the rock and my dad took a picture.

After that we walked back to our car to go to skull rock. At skull rock we took pictures of a rock that looked like a real skull. We also took the skull rock trail which was also pretty fun.

Ryan Mountain

Then finally we went to a hike that was 1.5 miles long, RYAN MOUNTAIN of course. At the start there were a lot of steps. As we started to go higher the more hotter it felt. It took us 1 hour to finally reach the top of Ryan’s mountain! When I saw the sign on top of the mountain I was shocked!!!!! It said the elevation we were on was 5457 feet!! It was pretty scary but I survived as we went back down the Mountain. In another 1 hour we reached the bottom. As we were driving to the hall of horrors I felt very dizzy from the Ryan mountain hike. Like I said I survived. At the hall of horrors we ate bread with cheese spread for lunch. I ate three of them. When we finished our food we went to the hall of horrors hike. We thought the hike will be creepy because its called hall of horrors. But No, we were all wrong it was just a normal 0.1 hike. That hike was the most worst one we have seen, maybe barker dam has something for us. Just then we needed water, so we went to the visitor center and filled up our water.

Barker Dam

After that we were driving to the dam, but on the way we saw a place where we could climb rocks! At first it was pretty hard to get to the top, but I made it. After all the fun we went to Barker dam. At the start of the trail I found out the hike is only 0.5 miles! The hike was easy so we finished it early and saw barker dam which was made fully of stones. Then I wondered how did they make the dam and why were there no ducks in the pond when we were walking. I was talking to my dad on the trail until I bumped in a spiky Joshua tree. My dad took a picture of me hugging the tree. At the end of the loop our final stop was hidden valley.

Hidden Valley

At hidden valley there was not actually a valley it was just a hike like the hall of horrors. I thought that hike was the best hike ever because the hike tried to trick you! The hike was done in a few minutes, so we jumped in my dads car and went back to the hotel super 8. In the hotel I didn’t eat anything, I took a shower and then watched college basketball for the whole day until my dad turned out the lights for bed. Right before bed my dad asked should we go to pinnacles tomorrow. I of course said yes.

Pinnacles

The next morning was Pinnacles day. First thing is breakfast. I ate bread, waffle and corn flakes. Then we zoomed out of the hotel and into the car. The car also zoomed to pinnacles. Inside the visitor center the lady told us that the park was closed apparently, hiking was allowed though. We planned to only do the bear gulch trail. At the Gulch trail we started walking. At first, the trail was pretty cool and relaxing. Until somewhat in the middle a cave appeared. Inside the cave it was super dark and very watery. It felt as though it was raining in the cave. A flashlight could be useful, I told my dad to get the flashlight. As we went through the cave it was dark and creepy. Most amazingly we got to see a under cave waterfall. At the end we saw about 47 steps to get to a reservoir. We sat down at a rock near the reservoir and ate barbecue chips. Yummy. Daddy said we could go back the loop way or back inside the cave? I answered that I wanted to go back in the cave because it was cool. So after I finished the chips we started heading back to the cave. At the end of the cave I thought why did I like the cave the first time I went but not the 2nd time I went. Well, the rest of the was just a normal hike. At the parking lot, we got into my dads car and drove 1 hour 42 minutes to home.

The end