
Ok, The map is vague about where you turn right after the Freak Bros, but just remember its not the first turn, but the next place where you can turn right (east) and stay level. As you get close, you enter a narrow, walled wash, and choose the left entrance for the quickest route. However, if you choose the RIGHT entrance, you can get to one of the most fantastic hollowed out boulders in the Park, walk right through the boulder, (has enough room for several people to get in out of the rain inside) and get back on the route that you would have been on if you had chosen the left, faster, route.
Some people that found the arch using this map took GPS readings. if thats a help, here they are.
Garrett's Arch -- Lat. N34degrees02.690', Long.W116degrees08.254'
Good luck. e-mail me and let me know how it went!
Myself, I was fascinated for years by the fact the Patty Furbish described this arch in her guidebook, On Foot in Joshua Tree Nation Monument (second printing) as being a level walk in the Wonderland of Rocks. I had been hiking the Monument (as the Park was then called) for years, and thought I knew the Wonderland area well. Finally I broke down and asked back country Ranger Gary Garrett where that d... arch is. Notice the similarity in names? Well, he not only knew, the arch is named after Gary, who originally *discovered* (or at least brought to the attention of the Park Rangers) the arch. Gary is the one person I've known who clearly knows the Wonderland/Queen Mountain areas better than I do, as he has hiked the back country DAILY for years on end, at least up until 1999 when I last talked to him, soon before I left California for the Carolinas.
Myself, I lived in Joshua Tree for twenty years, and for long stretches of time hiked the upper regions of the Park weekly. Before I left the area I was guiding certain anthropologists into some of the more remote regions where they were studying such things as archeo-astronomy sites. Occasionally I found things that even Gary didn't know of, and was able to add some small bits of information about the former Native American occupation of the area to the Park's well cataloged base of knowledge.
The above background aerial photo, overlaid with topo map lines, courtesty of John B. Johnston of
John B. Johnston's Joshua Tree National Park page
where many such aerial photos and maps and other wonders can be found.
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