This was one of the most rewarding site hunts I’ve ever had. Over a couple of years I pieced together a variety of small clues, finally discovering one key piece of information that revealed the location. This is one of my favorite things about visiting these sites – the search itself! Just grabbing some coordinates and barreling straight for a site is not as satisfying as doing the legwork towards discovery for myself, and experiencing that moment when all the clues come together to reveal the location.

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We visited this site with a fellow desert explorer, Guy Starbuck of starbuck.org.

This little site is hidden deep in the backcountry of Joshua Tree National Park. It look a long slog through vale and gully just to get here, climbing up and around many obstacles, wriggling through manzanita and choosing to bypass this yucca here in favor of that cactus over there, simply because the gap between thorn and boulder seems a little wider over there than down here and besides, have you seen what a yucca leaf can do when you meet it at the wrong angle? Always choose the cactus over the yucca.

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