Day Trip to Joshua Tree National Park - part 3

After a half day or so of driving north through Joshua Tree National Park, I was nearly at the end of the road.  I had decided that my final destination was going to be Hidden Valley, which promised to give me a good look at the unique granite formations and the Joshua Trees that are the hallmark of the Mojave side of the park.  Here’s the description of the trail, from the Best Easy Day Hikes book (book linked below):

• Hidden Valley – For good reason this is one of the park’s most heavily visited trails.  The enchanting valley is surrounded by mounds of monzogranite and attracts climbers as well as more casual explorers. 

Except for the little side trip to the rock arch, none of the walks I had taken in this park could be classified as hikes.  Even this one, which was about a mile long and took around a half mile, was on an easy trail over granite and sand, with a few stone stairways thrown in where the slight elevation required it.  Still, I managed to “hike” two or three miles out there in the desert heat – and that heat was definitely the reason I took it so easy!

Before I left Palm Desert, I had stocked up on water, buying four one-liter bottles to carry with me.  Taking stock before setting out in Hidden Valley, I had already consumed two liters; when I returned to the car afterwards I drank another half-liter.  I finished that third bottle during the drive to Coachella Valley Brewing after I exited the park.

From the Hidden Valley parking lot, the trail winds gently upward through the boulders, until finally cresting a small rise and descending into the valley.  There are interpretive signs all along the trail, and in the first part the subject matter relates Native American life in the valley, and then stories of cattle ranching there.  There are even stories of rustlers that used the valley as a hideout.

The star of the show these days are the incredible Monzonite granite boulders.  While the harsh desert sun tends to wash out the color from a distance, when you get close you can see that they are mostly a beautiful pink shade.  It’s probably a magical experience to be among these formations at sunset.

Since my drive back to the southern exit followed the route of the trip I had made 10 years ago, I started to recognize some of the features I had encountered on that trip.  I was struck by the seasonal changes as I drove through the Pinto Basin – when I had visited before, in the winter, plant life was abundant and verdant, given the desert conditions.  Here in the summer, the general sense was of dusty, dry ground, with the plants all clinging to life from their water stores or from some unseen, deep underground moisture.

My day trip to Joshua Tree was a success – I’d managed to experience, and learn, about the desert ecosystem.  I had not encountered much wildlife to speak of, just the honeybees and a few crows, but everything else remained sensibly out of sight.  There were relatively few tourists, so I had most of the sightseeing activities to myself – except for a German family that was also staying at the hotel in Palm Desert, whom I encountered twice in the park.

All that was left on my agenda for the day was to head over to Coachella Valley Brewing, which I posted on last week, and then find something for dinner.  The next day was set aside for a few brewery chores in the hotel in the morning, and then the drive into LA to get ready for the reunion at USC.  Those will be my next topics.

Day Trip to Joshua Tree National Park - part 2

In my first post about my day trip to Joshua Tree National Park, I mentioned an earlier trip I had made in December 2006.  That time, I only had the NPS guide to the park, which I picked up from the ranger at the entrance station.  I loosely followed it as I drove through the park from north to south.

That plan had worked well enough, but there was one point where I decided I wanted to take a walk towards some of the unique rock formations that highlight the Mojave side of Joshua Tree.  The distance I was going was only a quarter mile, but it wasn’t long before the landscape’s undulations left the rental car out of site, and I turned back for fear of getting lost.  Even so, I had time to experience the amazing diversity of desert plants that can be found here, and I even encountered a small arch that had been carved into the terrain.

This time, I had picked up a copy of the Best Day Hikes book for Joshua Tree National Park, and picked out a few destinations that looked worthy of a stop.  Most of these were short side trips, no more than a third of a mile round trip to the destination; I've also listed Cottonwood Spring even though I didn't visit it this time - the ranger at the welcome station suggested it, and I visited it the first time I visited the park.  

I’ve included the introductory description from the little day hikes guide (which I have once again linked at the end of this post): 

• Cottonwood Spring (1.6 miles, sandy trail) – This nature trail provides not only identifications of desert plants but also describes their uses by Native Americans.  A stroll farther down the wash from Cottonwood Spring allows you to see another use of the desert at Moorten’s Mill.
• Cholla Cactus Garden (0.25 miles, asphalt trail) – An unusually dense stand of cholla cactus rises in a cluster above the vast Pinto Basin.  The plants are as captivating as the views of the desert and the mountain ranges that surround the trail.
• Arch Rock (0.3 miles, granite and sand loop trail)– A short nature trail winds around fascinating White Tank granite formations and features appropriate geology lessons.
• Keys View (0.25 asphalt trail) – Keys View offers spectacular views of the south-central area of the park.  An interpretive sign provides information on the serious problem of air pollution in Joshua Tree.

The biggest surprise I encountered on the short walks I visited were the honey bees, hard at work despite the 100-degree temperatures.  There is even a sign warning about them at the Cholla Garden – and they were so omnipresent and curious, I didn’t even walk on that trail.  At the Keys View parking area, they were attracted to the sugar on the parking lot, residue from so many sweet drinks that had poured out there – I parked a long way out in the parking lot in an area that didn’t seem highly trafficked.

I visited Keys View on my previous trip, a clear winter day, so that I could see the Salton Sea in the distance to the south.  This time, the field of view was obscured by haze, and the interpretive sign directed me to look west in the direction of Palm Springs.  The entry to Coachella Valley is there, but a haze obscured the details of the geology – not only automobile emissions over the freeway, but everything else American society might put into the air in the Los Angeles basin. 

These short hikes – or more accurately, walks – were informative and offered a perspective on this beautiful landscape.  I’ve saved the highlight, Hidden Valley, for my last post about the visit to Joshua Tree.  For now, here’s that link to the Easy Day Hikes Book I used as a guide for my visit. 

Day Trip to Joshua Tree National Park - part 1

 Back in the winter of 2006 I was in Southern California on business.  My team had elected to stay over the weekend rather than flying back and forth to the east coast, so I took the rental car and made my first trip to Joshua Tree National Park during that trip.  I hadn’t planned my time well for that one; but the park is so fascinating I added it to the itinerary for the 2017 vacation.

A quick reference to the park’s website will provide an excellent overview, but I also picked up a copy of “Best Easy Day Hikes” in Joshua Tree (linked below).  I’ve used these guides in quite a few parks, including Acadia, Grand Canyon, Death Valley, and Shenandoah.  I reckon I have seven or eight of them – and at one point I had completed every day hike listed in the Shenandoah book!

With even this modest preparation, I already knew much more about the park then I did that first time I visited.  Joshua Tree is a desert place – but the park itself actually straddles the border of two North American deserts – the Mojave in the Northeast, and the Sonoran in the Southwest.  On that previous trip, I entered through the Mojave, but this time, I drove over from Palm Desert, through the Sonoran side.

The landscape character is clearly divided in two, with the Sonora an arid, rocky place, and the Mojave characterized by unique rocky formations and the Joshua Tree itself.  On the east coast, we are conditioned to think of deserts as a sandy place with very few plants, lifeless as far as the eye can see.  That is the experience you have in Death Valley, but here in Joshua Tree, specialized vegetation abounds – even though I was there in the summer, and the plants do everything they can to conserve water for themselves, there was green to be found in both deserts, and in one spot, the plants were even in bloom! 

Before getting much further into the Joshua Tree experience, I want to spend a moment or two talking about the eponymous trees.  It’s actually a type of yucca, and its range is not limited to this park – it is found in Nevada and Arizona as well, and south into Mexico.  Young trees are single stemmed and grow to around three or four feet tall.  Once a tree matures, flowers, and has seeds that germinate, it is likely to branch.  They can live to be older than 150 years and reach heights of 40 feet in the park, but as the trees get older they begin to fade back to a single stem before they die.

Interpretive guides say that the trees host all sorts of wildlife, including orioles, small mammals, insects, and reptiles.  Here I was out in the mid-day heat, and those animals, all smarter than me, were hidden in the shade!