I haven’t been to the Juniper Dunes Wilderness area in over 20 years to I decided it was time to reconnoiter in preparation for a hiking page and blog entry on hiketricities.com.
Click here for map and details of this hike!
On our way to the wilderness area, we saw a beautiful sunrise and a gorgeous rainbow so we figured it would be a nice day. 
That being said, just getting out to go hiking makes for a nice day!
What a joy as my middle son, Nate agreed to come along with me. As we headed out the road to the wilderness area, we came across some powdery dirt and sandy spots where I worried about getting stuck in my little two-wheel drive Toyota pickup.
As we continued eastward on the sandy trail, we got into some “quicksand”.
Nate standing in one of the holes our truck made when we got stuck!
Before we knew it, we were up to our axles in soft, dry sand! Nate tried pushing as I rocked the truck back and forth but we just dug in deeper. We each said a silent prayer and Nate asked what can we do to get unstuck? I told him we needed some wood or logs to help us get out. He remembered a firepit we had seen on a previous trip and we started walking. We hadn’t gone much more than a quarter mile when I happened to look to the side of the trail and see some plywood nearly buried under some sagebrush. We took the wood back to the truck and started digging. We wedged the wood under the rear tires and rolled out, we were so blessed! We then headed out for our hike.
I wanted to get to the wilderness area and I knew it was to the east. As we headed that direction, Nate decided to go barefoot so we stuck to the sandy trails, not the easiest to hike in. It’s actually quite a workout.
It was a pleasant day for a hike as the temperature was moderate and the sun was hidden behind the clouds. We only had a few little sprinkles.
As we hiked, I was pleasantly greeted by many flowering bushes and plants which sprung forth from the earth with bright yellows, purples, whites and more. 
It is so much fun to see the plants that can thrive in such a seemingly barren landscape.
We had to go cross-country as I spotted a clump of juniper trees that I figured must have been in the wilderness area.
Juniper Trees in the Wilderness Area in the Distance
As we headed that way, I spotted the fence that I knew marked the wilderness boundary!
We climbed over the fence and headed for the clump of junipers. It was a wonderful adventure. We wandered around the wilderness are for a short time but our delay in getting the truck stuck forced us to cut our journey a little shorter than I hoped for. 
We did take the time to get a nice picture in front of juniper tree. Nate picked a bunch of juniper berries and tossed them at me as we hiked!
Picking Ammo
It was fun.
We crossed back onto the BLM land and climbed up a large sand dune
where Nate dug, buried
Interesting Patterns as Nate Dug Away at the Sand
and jumped in enjoying the fun of playing in the sand.
We had the GPS to help us return to the truck. We got sprinkled on a little as we wrapped up the day but nothing too uncomfortable.
In the Juniper Dunes Wilderness Area
We were able to drive out with no further “quicksand” incidents.
A fun day at Juniper!