What is over the hill?

Have you ever wondered what is on the other side of a hill?  I often have, and I hope part of our adventure will be to be able to find out, from time to time.

From our site we see mountains in one direction, and hills in the other.  I know civilization (or what passes for it in the LA area) is beyond the mountains, but what lies just on the other side of these scrubby hills?

View from the end of our Jojoba road

The other day, I set out for a short walk around the Jojoba RV Resort by myself.  I had intended to stay within the park boundary and on the paved road, but I discovered a pass-thru in the fence to the land beyond.  

I went thru the unofficial gate in the fence, and walked about a half mile up a sandy track.  But then, I thought about the fact that it was almost noon and getting hot.  I didn’t have any water with me and no one knew where I was.  I decided it was prudent to go back and explore this path another day.  Later that day I did stop at the office and asked who owned that land.  I was told they thought it was BLM land.

I decided to make it our Thursday morning hike, for which I packed water and peanut butter and pickle breakfast sandwiches.

Several sandy Jeep/ATV roads crisscross the area. They must be used frequently because we could see several different tread prints in the sand.  We also noted many quail tracks, rabbit tracks, and either dog or coyote tracks.  Ants and quail were the only wildlife we actually saw, but I did recognize some tarantula burrows and a lot of much larger gopher or ground squirrel holes.

The widely scattered Yucca plants were blooming.

When we got about a mile up the track we could see a house far up on the hill. We speculated as to how they built it there. Was this sandy trail the driveway? Did they transport the building materials by this rough trail?

At about two miles into the hike we came to a fence line that we think might have been the boundary between the house and BLM lands.  Although it wasn't posted, we decided not to cross the fence.  I had seen empty 8mm and shotgun shells along the way.  

We didn’t want to be trespassers.

From this vantage point we could see the valley that was on the other side of our hill.  The sandy road branched off down to quite a collection of buildings and houses. 

There were more open scrub covered hills in one direction. Mountains in the distance, and we caught the glint of cars driving on what we think might have been Hwy79.  If it was, we were standing below the back yard of the big house on the hill. It probably has a nice paved drive on the other side!

We had our sandwiches and headed back to the SKP park.  

So, now I know what is on the other side of this hill. It was fun to find out.

I hope that we can explore many more in the future.