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Home / Mojave Preserve and Desert bikepacking trips / 2009, Fall: Mojave National Preserve / Day 4: Hike to Cornfield Spring on the west side of the Providence Mountains, Mojave National Preserve /

Sitting here in deep shade pumping water from Cornfield Spring makes me feel like I'm somewhere other than the Mojave Desert

07094-cornfield-spring.jpg I step across some rocks in a patch of plants (maidenhair ferns, I think) under which a dark blue stream trickles vigourouslyThumbnailsAfter filtering 10 litres of Cornfield Spring water in the shade, it's time to climb under that tree again and out of the washI step across some rocks in a patch of plants (maidenhair ferns, I think) under which a dark blue stream trickles vigourouslyThumbnailsAfter filtering 10 litres of Cornfield Spring water in the shade, it's time to climb under that tree again and out of the washI step across some rocks in a patch of plants (maidenhair ferns, I think) under which a dark blue stream trickles vigourouslyThumbnailsAfter filtering 10 litres of Cornfield Spring water in the shade, it's time to climb under that tree again and out of the washI step across some rocks in a patch of plants (maidenhair ferns, I think) under which a dark blue stream trickles vigourouslyThumbnailsAfter filtering 10 litres of Cornfield Spring water in the shade, it's time to climb under that tree again and out of the washI step across some rocks in a patch of plants (maidenhair ferns, I think) under which a dark blue stream trickles vigourouslyThumbnailsAfter filtering 10 litres of Cornfield Spring water in the shade, it's time to climb under that tree again and out of the wash

It smells green and moist here. A few hundred feet away is typical parched and rocky Mojave Desert terrain. Photographs don't capture how it feels to simultaneously experience these two contrasting landscapes; you have to be there.