On day three I woke to a low, dense fog. The remnants of a steady rain during the night. My plan had been to drive north, through the boulders, to the northern entrance near Twenty Nine Palms. Branching out into Hidden Valley and up to Keys View at 5,185 ft. would make a full day. Mother nature had other plans. Desperately needed rain changes the very essence of the park. Roads quickly flood. Brief rivers appear where dry gullies sat listless the day before. Entire sections of the park become impassable. Time to execute Plan B.

During the course of this trip, my luck with the weather has been beyond fortunate. I’ve driven over 15,000 miles and less than two hours have been spent driving in the rain. Inevitably in very park I visit, I hear this sentence, “Man, you’re timing is great.” Followed by either, “Last week was rough” or “Next week is supposed to be bad.” Obviously I have no control over the weather, so I study weather charts like a fledgling weatherman. Unlike the east, when you get to this part of the country, parks are numerous and typically only 300-500 miles apart. Which means you can make contingency plans if a front is moving through. My simple point is two-fold. I am lucky and I am now in a part of the country where I can be flexible.

Stephen Hawking I do not profess to be, so Plan B was not complex. Execute Plan A as much as possible, given the road closures and fog. First stop, after navigating several flooded roads, was Hidden Valley. A warm-up hike of slightly over a mile, the shrouded trail leads through massive boulders to what was once a hiding place for cattle rustlers. As I’m walking through boulders the size of a Buick Vista Cruiser, scenes from John Houston movies dance in my head. I’m waiting for Glenn Ford to come around the corner, face covered by a red bandanna, guns blazing. Rustlers scramble to their feet, but it’s too late. The very traits that made this a perfect hiding place, make it a trap. Ford lassos the bunch and ties off the rope to his saddle horn. I have to sit to get the images out of my head. Someone once told me I read too much as a kid. But it wasn’t the books that did this to me, it was the movies.