Tuesday
August 24
th, was just too packed with fun it warranted a second blog
post. We had a tour planned to go to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and
stargaze for this evening. But bad weather washed out the road and the Native
Americans were not going to have it repaired in time. Helen worked
hard with Desert Wonder Tours to find a suitable replacement event. She hit a
homerun!
We boarded 2
vans and were chauffeured to the Arizona Joshua Tree Forest, near the west end
of the Grand Canyon just east of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
It’s nestled on the Grapevine Mesa between
the villages of Meadview and Lake Mead City, and lies just west of the colorful
Grand Wash Cliffs that tower over the eastern edge of the forest.
The Joshua
tree (Yucca brevifolia) is native to southwestern North America in the states
of Arizona, California, Utah and Nevada.
It is mostly confined to the Mohave Desert between 1,300 ft. and 5,900
ft. in elevation. The trunk of the
Joshua tree is made up of thousands of small fibers and lacks the usual growth
rings, making it difficult to determine the tree’s exact age. These trees can live for hundreds of years
while surviving the rigors of the desert.
Joshua trees
are fast growers for the desert, with new seedlings growing at an average rate
of just over 1 inch year for the first 10 years.
As the trees age their growth slows to an
average of ½ inch per year thereafter.
The average maximum height reaches nearly 50 feet.
New trees can grow from seed or in some
populations; new stems can grow from underground rhizomes (root runners) that
spread out around the base of the Joshua tree.
The Joshua
trees do not branch until a bloom is formed which only occurs under certain
conditions from February to late April.
Each bloom can produce two branches.
Like most desert plants, their blooming is dependent on rainfall at the
proper time of the year. The trees also need a winter freeze before they will
bloom.
The flower or bloom forms on
multiple limbs in any given year and consists of a 12 to 14 inch waxy white
flower clump.
The bloom forms an eatable
fruit or seedpod averaging 4 inches long and 1-2 inches in diameter.
The fruit stays on the tree for about 3 months
as it ripens before splitting open and dropping its seeds.
Seeds are not
always fertile due to the tree relying exclusively on the Yucca Moth to help it
procreate. The Yucca Moth flies at night collecting pollen from the stamens,
holding a little ball of pollen in her mouth.
As she visits other flowers she lays an egg in the seed-box and applies
the pollen to the tip of the pistil, thus securing the fertilization of the
flower and the growth of the ovules in the pod.
No other creature visiting the blossoms of the Joshua tree can transfer
the pollen from one flower to another.
Although older Joshua trees can sprout new plants from their roots, only
the seeds produced in a pollinated flower can scatter enough to establish new
stands of trees.
The Arizona
Joshua Tree Forest receives about 9 to 12 inches of rainfall throughout an
average year, with some snowfall in the winter months. The Joshua trees
intermingle with the Pinion-Juniper at the 5,200 ft. elevation on Iron
Mountain. At around the 4,300 ft. elevation the area becomes more dominated by
the Joshua tree. Along the shallow washes of the Grapevine Mesa is where the
larger size and greatest number of Joshua trees present a “Forested” aspect. In
the lower elevations the other species of desert plants are more prevalent.
In this
place, an incomparably beautiful “forest” of Joshua Trees (yucca brevifolia)
spreads out along the low ridges and shallow washes of Grapevine Mesa south and
to the east of the small community of Meadview, Arizona.
There are a great abundance of these big,
old, gnarly yuccas here. This is definitely a visually memorable species.
Numerous improbably huge and twisting arms
extend outward at all angles from a stout trunk.
The ends of the arms are sheathed in a knot
of bright apple-green spikes.
The older
specimens often sport thick trunks.
These great
old trees remain full of life and in tenaciously good health surviving as they
do, in a very dry land.
Why here?
Better minds have been mulling it over for a
long, long; time, but this small area must somehow provide these Joshua’s with
the very best combination of elevation, overall aspect, soil, and
rainfall.
Several plant and insect
species occurring within Joshua Tree groups are also known to play vital roles
in their reproduction.
The Grand
Wash Cliffs were named by the US Government-commissioned Powell Expedition of
1869.
Late in August of that year, Major
John Wesley Powell and his crew of explorers and scientists exited the mouth of
the Grand Canyon after safely negotiating their little wooden dories down the
tempestuous Colorado River during the prior three months.
They called the place where they left the
river the Grand Wash, and the great escarpment that loomed high above them
here, the Grand Wash Cliffs.
We departed
the Joshua Tree Forest and headed to the Grand Canyon Western Ranch. The
historic Grand Canyon Western Ranch comprises over 800 acres, and which wrote
an exciting chapter of its own in the settlement of northern Arizona where part
of the Mormon Trail ran through its land. The ranch was once owned by a
notorious 19th-century gunfighter. This Old West-style resort on a secluded
cattle ranch is nestled in Grapevine Canyon between the Music Mountains and the
southern end of the Grand Wash Cliffs 10 miles from the west rim of the Grand
Canyon.
The great
ranches of the Old West are time capsules of the American frontier, where one
can hear tales of gunfighters and desperadoes, wranglers and cowpokes, and
cattle drives of a thousand miles up the dusty Chisholm and Goodnight-Loving
trails to the railheads of Abilene, Dodge City and Denver. These historic
ranches are the stuff of legend, and more than one classic John Ford western
movie.
The water for
the Ranch comes from an artisan springs called Grass Springs. The Stone Cabins
date back to the 1880's built by miners who were processing gold ore. Starkey
family moved into the Stone Cabin after the miners had left. They ended their
operations here when the Hualapai held their very first Ghost Dance in 1889.
The main
Ranch House was built in 1931 by Tap Duncan who acquired the Ranch from the
Starkey's. It became the original headquarters of his 1.4 million acre cattle
ranch then known as the Diamond Bar Ranch. In order to acquire 1.4 million
acres some folks still wonder how he came by that money. Some say honestly
through hard work whilst others say from Bank and Train robberies.
In 1956 the
Ranch was bought by Dale Smith who was a World Champion Calf Roper in rodeo. At
that time the ranch only operated as a cattle and horse ranch until it was
purchased by the present owner’s predecessor in 2002 and converted to tourism
whilst operating on a smaller scale as a horse and cattle ranch.
The main
Ranch house was converted to a Restaurant offering breakfast, lunch and dinner
and a bar, featuring cowboy-themed decor such as wagon wheels and saddles. Some
of our group arrived early, enjoyed a meal and were entertained by Cowboy Dave.
When the rest of us arrived in the vans, a few more ate dinner. I had a piece
of coconut cream pie.
After dinner,
we all loaded into the vans and headed to the top of a mesa, just as it was
starting to get dark. The ranch was surrounded by beautiful and scenic views.
We
saw a few stars in the sky, but were able to watch the sunlight fade from the
horizon.
As it got
darker, the more stars we could see. Cowboy Dave pointed out various stars and
constellations.
Several of us
had a Skyview app on their phones and we shared with others to see the
constellations come to life!
We could even
see the Milky Way, but could not capture it on the camera. We got to see their
Bison heard, that was penned on the Mesa for the night. It was too dark to get
a clear picture of them. But they did have a new baby cow and a baby bull.
When we came
down from the mesa, the Ranch also provided us a cowboy campfire, complete with
s’mores and live music.
I think that
Desert Wonder Tours, LLC hit a home run with this excursion! What a great day to
take a detour from our #Route66RVcaravan with #yankeeRVtours
