Four Hours in the Desert: Chasing Time in Joshua Tree

I’m a year late writing about this, but I figured I should tell the story before my record gets broken by somebody else. I have always been a fan of the idea of the FKT, if its a route that is inspiring or means something to somebody. I’m not talking about every Strava segment in the world, but it’s fun for a community to pick a certain route like the backyard hill and compete for the fastest time on it. Bigger FKTs require a little more planning and almost always result in more adventure than a typical race has. Races have aid stations and medical care and people watching and other runners and course markings and just about everything you need; FKT routes are often lonely, self-supported epics with nobody cheering (or caring, for that matter).

The Joshua Tree Traverse is a somewhat popular FKT route, for whatever reason. Joshua Tree National Park is gorgeous and unique, but attracts rock climbers and photographers far more than runners (or hikers, for that matter). There are a bunch of very cool trails in the park, mainly leading to spectacular rock formations or hidden grottoes housing precious water sources. The traverse, though, is a ~37 mile route from the Black Rock Campground to the North Entrance Station, point-to-point through the park. The men’s FKT has slowly dropped from about 5 hours to about 4 hours over the years, and the women’s record has been hotly contested every year, falling to 4:40 in 2024.

Joshua Tree National Park

At the beginning of March 2024, I had to fly down to Las Vegas for a site visit in the middle of nowhere between Vegas and Palm Springs. It was a quick work trip, but my flight from Las Vegas back to Reno wasn’t until midafternoon the following day. I hatched a plan to run the Joshua Tree Traverse, for no other reason than it being nice outside and I wanted to. Sometimes we don’t need logical training schedules or planned-out vacations, etc… Sometimes we just get to do what life gives us the opportunity to do.

I called a friend of mine who recently lived in the hamlet of Joshua Tree, one of those sunburned tourist-hippie town that I love dearly. She referred me to a friend who could shuttle me from the finish to the start on her way to work, and we were set. The night before the run I drove through the scenic (at least it would be scenic is it wasn’t dark) National Park Road through the heart of the park. I found Ryan Campground, about halfway through the trail, and stashed 3 500mL bottles and some gels in the bushes, right by where the trail comes into the campground. Colossal boulders bulged above me in the moonlight, guarding the campers from the daylight. Cold desert air settled in the basin. Stars shimmered. All was pleasant.

Next up: a drive to the North Entrance Station parking lot, the terminus of the California Hiking and Riding Trail. I laid out my sleeping bag in the back of the rental car (surprisingly spacious!!! I had rented a “mystery car” for a cheap rate, which usually results in a mysteriously small car that barely works), fell asleep, and then woke up. I grabbed my stuff and got picked up by Amy, who is a spectacular person and selflessly drove me to the southern end of the trail. As the sun crept over the spires of rock and the cool morning air dissolved into a shimmering desert warmth, we pulled into the campground at the start of the trail. I got out, Amy snapped a picture of me at the start of the trail, and then she left. The glorious thing about an FKT is that there is no set start time, no fanfare, no nothing. You just start.

The start of the Joshua Tree Traverse

The start of the trail was beautiful. I climbed up a gradual sandy wash through a narrow canyon choked with spring flowers and towering Joshua Trees. The rocks stood in place as they have for the last million years. I didn’t have any time to look around too much, but I remember it being nice. The first climb was the biggest of the day, only 5.5 miles and 1000 feet of climbing. I figured since there wasn’t much climbing throughout the entirety of the route, I should just hammer every uphill as hard as I could. The rest of the first half was dreamy. The trail wound up and down, into narrow canyons and thick forests of Joshua Trees. The air was crisp but the sun was warm. The trail had some technical bits but was mostly ripper singletrack, if a bit too sandy. The infinite Mojave Desert stretched in every direction, dry hills and canyons and playas soaked in punishing sun. I was but a lonely figure in the immense scale of it all. Coyotes played on the hills around me, jackrabbits sped under bushes, birds flitted around in the joyous morning. I only encountered one group of two hikers the entire first 20 miles, who probably had no idea why somebody would be running so hard 10 miles from the nearest trailhead with seemingly no supplies. There are no water sources along the trail, even in early March, so hikers rely on caches and sore back muscles to carry enough water in the desolate environment.

I came to Ryan Campground about 7 minutes under the previous record pace (Aubrey Myjer just about a year prior to my run) but struggled to find my water cache. The trail, the bushes, the rocks all looked drastically different during the day than they did the night before. A few moments of panic ensued, which felt inordinately long. I found the bottles and gels eventually and took off for the second half, into a somehow drier section than the previous. Some small rolling hills followed the transition, after which the trail dropped off the high ridge of the park and descended into an empty inferno of nothingness, the haunting Mojave, the place where only lizards can be. The entire last 12 miles of the trail is downhill, with the exception of a few small rises punctuating the descent. It didn’t really feel like it though; the trail was a sandbox. My pounding legs drove as hard as they could down the trail, but both the sand and the sun were sapping the strength they had.

To summarize the last hour of the trail: I suffered. I hardly noticed what was around me, although with every foot of descent there was less and less plant life to notice. The air got hotter and hotter, I ran completely out of water, but I just kept pushing. I had a flight to catch, after all. Finally, after a few small humps through rocky and dry canyons, I spotted the North Entrance Station, looked at my watch, and knew I had it. I tagged the trailhead sign at 4:01:03 after I had started, 5 minutes faster than the previous record. I chugged some water, took the selfie below, and got in the car to drive 4 hours to Vegas. I got to my gate exactly as the plane was boarding; sometimes everything just seems to work out.

The end

This was an awesome adventure, and things like this are sometimes more fun and exciting than racing is. I actually think this was my best effort of 2024, which maybe isn’t a good thing. I always like to leave my calendar open to adventures like this, because this is the soul of why I even participate in the sport.