Joshua Tree National Park

California has more national parks than any other state and we will be visiting all nine of them this year. First on the list is Joshua Tree and like many places we visit, there is a unique beauty to this park unlike anywhere else. There certainly are a lot of Joshua trees, as you would expect, but that’s just the start of what makes this park special.

So what is a Joshua tree anyway? Actually Joshua trees aren’t technically trees, rather succulents in the agave family. They are an oddly shaped mid-sized tree but can get up to 40 feet tall. They are predominantly found in certain parts of the desert southwest where the proper conditions allow their growth. If you come across a smaller tree that’s not quite a palm and not quite a cactus, it might just be a Joshua tree.

The primary road in the park, loops through the west entrance in Joshua Tree to the east entrance in 29 Palms. The deeper you drive into the park the more spectacular it gets. The Joshua trees become backdropped by unique boulder hills. These boulders appear as if they were just upheaved from the earth teeter tottering on top of each other and look like they could come tumbling down at any second. Some of the boulders are as large as houses. It all started as a natural process between 100 million and 270 million years as magma rose from below and melted the rock, creating the boulders which eventually appeared on the surface as the land above eroded. Natural disaster or mother nature’s creative artwork? You make the call.

We found Joshua Tree to be a low effort, large reward kind of experience, meaning you don’t have to take long strenuous hikes to see the best parts. Many of the key sights are right off the road or a short hike away, which takes us to our top things to do in Joshua Tree.

Take a Short Hike

There are a tremendous number of short hikes in the park ranging from around 1/2 mile to under 2 miles. Most of these hikes are pretty flat, however all of them offer the opportunity to do some fun scrambling up on and through the boulders. Consider this when planning your time, we found we spend more time on these short hikes than we expected. Hikes we did and highly recommend include:

• Arch Rock Nature Trail – Very cool natural arch and if your in for some additional adventure, sneak back in the slot behind the arch for a ways. Don’t forget to take the short spur trail to Heart Rock and catch a pic. It’s really a perfectly shaped heart rock!
• Cap Rock Nature Trail – Yeah, it looks like the tall rock formation is wearing a cap. And if you’re lucky you can catch some climbers making their way to the top.
• Skull Rock Trail – This is one of the most popular sights in the park and the rock is right off the side of the road. You don’t have to do the hike to see the rock, but the hike is a good bonus and goes through some very cool terrain.
• Hidden Valley Nature Trail – A nice one-mile hike that we combined in a day with Cap Rock and Skull Rock
• Hall of Horrors – Another great short hike through three boulder fields and two hidden slot canyons. The slots can be difficult to find and do require a certain degree of scrambling to reach them, but well worth the effort. I found this blog post which helped us in locating the slot canyons.

Visit a Palm Oasis

You wouldn’t expect a tropical experience when hiking in the high desert, but the Fortynine Palms Oasis Trail is just that. It’s a moderate hike at 3.1 miles and a 636 foot elevation gain but nothing hard at all. The payoff at the end is an amazing palm grove. It’s a great place to find a big rock under the palms and stop for lunch before heading back.

Watch the Sunset on Top of Ryan Mountain

OK, this hike may not be for everyone but if you are looking for a good cardio workout and a beautiful desert sunset, this is the hike for you. Many reviewers describe this as a stairmaster and I agree. It gains 1,000 feet in a mile and a half to the summit! The clouds rolled in from the west just before sunset, so I missed the spectacular sunset, but it was still a pretty spectacular view from up top.

Check Out an Amazing Overlook at Keys View

The best view in Joshua Tree is from Keys View and you can drive right to it on a 20-minute drive from the main park road. The panoramic view looks down in the valley to Palm Springs and across to the snowcapped mountain peaks. In the foreground you can actually see the San Andreas Fault. If you want more of this view from a little further western perspective and have a 4WD vehicle, check out Lower Covington Flat Road which meanders out to Eureka Peak.

Stroll Through a Cholla Cactus Garden

We see Cholla cactus here and there in our travels but have never seen anything like the Cholla Cactus Garden. Heading out on Pinto Basin Road, the southerly road in the park, you begin to descend into a valley but before you do these Cholla cacti appear out of nowhere. There’s a short nature trail that allows you to walk right through the garden. Don’t miss this one!

Visit Palm Springs

Palm Springs is just over an hour away from Joshua Tree and well worth a day trip. In fact, I can recommend the slower and much more scenic route down Pinto Basin Road (see above). Palm Springs has a cool vibe to it and we had a great time meeting up with an old friend we hadn’t seen in over 25 years.

Do Some Off-Roading

We enjoy doing some off-roading in-between hiking days and let the Jeep do the hard work. There are two area that we explored that were a lot of fun and a bit challenging.

Geology Tour Road & Berdoo Canyon – Geology Tour Road is an 18-mile scenic dirt and sand road in Joshua Tree National Park that most vehicles can drive, considering conditions are right. I highly recommend this drive to see a bit of the less traveled area of the park. This road will eventually turn into Berdoo Canyon Road. If you don’t have a high clearance 4WD vehicle, turn around before you get here… if so, buckle up and enjoy the ride. The canyon is beautiful and just enough obstacles to make it interesting. Be aware, when you come to the end of the canyon trail you enter the Berdoo Canyon Shooting Area. This is an open shooting area on BLM land with no rules and no cost to those who want to use it. Shell casing litter the trail and you feel like you are driving through a war zone. Trash is everywhere! I’m all for 2nd Amendment rights, but this is tragic.

Rattlesnake Canyon & Burns Canyon – This off-road area is northwest of Joshua Tree and provides some great rock crawling challenges. The trail cuts through Rattlesnake Canyon and a spring so recent rains can up the trail rating as I suspected it did for us. For an unlifted Jeep, this was very technical for us, requiring a lot of surveying and ground guidance. As you exit the canyon you enter a Joshua tree forest and then meet up with Burns Canyon Road, which we took as our route back. This is an easy dirt road that I suspect was beautiful, but we entered dense fog ahead of an incoming storm which made for a unique experience.

We spent nearly three weeks in Joshua Tree and really enjoyed it. Being only two hours from Los Angeles, we were surprised how low key and quite it was. This was a good start to California’s national parks.

Be sure to check out all of our pictures from Joshua Tree.