Featuring Trashcan and AFPA Rocks

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Trashcan Rock 2D ↑

3D Anaglyph ↓

EARLY ROCK CLIMBERS, no doubt gravely strung out on too much caffeine and other stimulants, conceived a variety of tongue-in-cheek names for their favorite Joshua Tree rock piles. For instance, the central mound at Ryan Campground, at the base of which campers put their tents while their munchkin-brigade plays King of the Hill, has been dubbed The Manure Pile—little do they realize!

Warning: Wild Nubbins Present at All Times

At Quail Springs Picnic Area, the most popular munchkin-scramble and easy-route climbs for climbers are found on Trashcan Rock. This lies at the southern end with the car-park around.

Across From the Parking Area rises the somewhat triangular-shaped and nicely formed “AFPA Rock.”

AFPA Rock

Quail Springs Picnic Area and AFPA Rock are featured on this page.

Five hundred yards due southwest—or is it west-by-southwest?—from the parking lot, lie a couple of less-seldom visited destinations. The first, beyond a low sand dune, is named for Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mystery story, “Hound of the Baskervilles” and includes Hound Rock and Baskerville Rock.

Several hundred paces away, there rises a nice (usually shaded) cliff projecting from the hillside that, because when the sun strikes it the color is lighter than the surrounding monzogranite, they’ve dubbed it the White Cliffs of Dover after the Dover Cliffs coastline in England. Winter scene →