The 49 Palms Oasis trailhead is about a fifteen-minute drive from Joshua Tree proper. While so close, this area seems so different from Joshua Tree. Off the highway you begin to wind into the desert, you never pass a visitor center or a gate, you ease off the main highway and pretty quickly find yourself at the trailhead. It reminds me how tenuous civilization seems out here. The gas stations, the 29 Palms thrift store, and the “Jelly Donut” advertising date shakes all disappear so quickly.

I usually welcome the sight of other cars at a trailhead. I like to avoid the kind of traffic you find at really popular hikes in the park, but I do love people watching. I got to the trailhead at 8am, in the second week of May even the lizards seemed too hot that early in the morning. Starting my walk on the trail, big, dark chuckwallas gave me lazy looks over their scaly shoulders. 

As I was beginning my hike, an older couple was finishing theirs. They were the first dataset in my 49 Palms Oasis hiker algorithm. Their kit was solid; camel backs, extra water, and covered from head to toe. They flawlessly executed trail etiquette, they stepped aside on the narrow path so I could pass, we greeted each other cheerfully, they expressed some good-natured exhaustion and excitement about the beauty of the hike they’d just taken.

Further in, a middle-aged woman passed on her way back to the trailhead. She had a faint European accent, hiking shorts, sunglasses, a hat. She seemed maybe a tad overconfident but well outfitted and prepared.

As the day wore on and got hotter, the hikers starting their walk seemed to get younger and less prepared. The final couple I passed fulfilled the equation. They were headed out, tank tops and shorts, all black, sunglasses but no hats, and one plastic water bottle each. I wished them well. I think I landed somewhere in the middle of all of them. The sun was already searing overhead, it was well before noon, and I was happy to be heading back.

As a person who grew up in and lives in a city, going into the wilderness seems totally separate from my everyday life. It’s easy for me to forget that trails like these are maintained and designed spaces, too. Descriptions of the hike to the 49 Palms Oasis warn you that it’s uphill - both ways. You begin hiking and with moments of rest find that it’s actually true. 

The initial vantage is a sprawling view of the town of 29 Palms, neat, regular buildings, grass lawns and desert surroundings. Perceived distance seems almost meaningless here, where the town seems so miniature, so close, and endlessly far away at the same time. So often, on this hike and others, a cursory survey of the landscape reads quickly as desolate. Isolated plants seem a little weak and striving, with belied moments of diversity and abundance. Zooming in to a yucca flower I find a whole world of bees, beetles, and flies covered in pollen, buzzing and working. On the way to the 49 Palms Oasis I had a familiar experience, the bright sun bleached my view, it blended everything into a sandy, muted shade. I stopped to examine some yellowish blossoms and found an island of vitality. A tiny lizard scurried into the shade, stopped, blankly looked back at me, raised up on its hind legs, and nonchalantly gobbled up one of the flowers.

On the trail, as you descend off the highest point, the town disappears and you’re isolated in a little valley, red  barrel cactus almost blend in with the other scrubby plants. Once you spot the first one they’re everywhere. At around the halfway point of the hike, for moments you can glimpse the shaggy, miraculously green palm oasis just as soon it slips out of view. Where everything seems alien, the unexpected glimpse is so strange it briefly makes the whole landscape seem mundane. 

Once at the oasis, the shade is a revelation. It’s cool, with maybe a little moisture in the air, though thinking back on it that seems like a fantasy. The swaying palms manifest the desert wind in a dreamier way than sand in your food, your own hair in your face, or the wind farm in the San Gorgonio Pass ever could.

Trailhead and parking lot at the end of Fortynine Palms Canyon Rd, Twentynine Palms, CA 92277