Day Trip to Joshua Tree

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Escaping the heat in Joshua Tree – hey is that snow??

Earlier this month, I made my second visit to Joshua Tree National Park during a weekend in Palm Springs. Despite being March, it was in the low 90s in Palm Springs, so we were more than happy to head to the higher elevation and different climate in Joshua Tree – a beautiful 75 degrees!

jotr2_07As we only had so many hours in the park, we stuck to a driving tour with brief stops for some short walks. As I observed on my last trip, Joshua Tree has an abundance of short nature walks, but with not a lot of shade and no water available in the park, very few longer hikes. I think Joshua Tree might be more of a climbing/bouldering paradise than hiking… but maybe I need a SoCal native  to show me how it’s done.

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Hidden Valley

On our loop, we hit up the jotr2_02jotr2_05Hidden Valley Trail, the Cap Rock Nature Trail, and the Arch Rock Trail. The Hidden Valley Loop is a nice little introduction to the terrain of Joshua tree. The ~1 mile loop circles a valley previously used as a grazing area by cattle smugglers. We saw a couple signs of spring with blooming yucca and a single cactus.jotr2_04

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Cap Rock

The Cap Rock interpretive loop is very short, but there is a picnic area and an -um- interesting story our hotel manager told us to look up regarding the death of musician Gram Parsons.

 

 

jotr2_10Our favorite little walk of the day was the loop to Arch Rock, the trailhead for which is in the White Tank Campground. The trail takes you to some interesting natural rock formations, but my favorite part was that jotr2_09we saw lots of lizards, including two chuckwallas. Chuckwallas can live up to 40 years and grow to something like 15 inches long. We saw an adult male, with the characteristic orange body and black head, and a female (or perhaps a juvenile?) with a greenish brown pattern and a striped tail.

IMG_20150329_214709On our way out of town, I did stop in at the Indian Cove ranger station to pick up one of the passport cancellations I didn’t yet have for the park. Is it cheating if I didn’t stay at the campground? Oh well.

 

 

Joshua Tree National Park: Lodging & Camping

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An east-facing room gives you great views of a desert sunrise.

I always obsess over finding good places to stay when traveling. I don’t need luxury – what I really want is something that helps capture the character of the place I’m visiting. Tripadvisor has never let me down when it comes to hotels, even if you sometimes need to read between the lines, but it can be harder to sort through other people’s expectations and experiences with different campgrounds. I thought I’d include some periodic posts dedicated to lodging and camping, so here’s an installment on where we stayed on our Feb trip to Joshua Tree.

Because we’d be arriving on the later side after the long drive from the Bay Area, we opted to stay in a hotel in 29 Palms our first night. The 29 Palms Inn was great! We stayed in one of the adobe cottages, which consist of a cottage-style room with a private sun patio and a fireplace. They are situated right on the Oasis of Mara, the birthplace of 29 Palms, and are not more than a half-mile or so from the Park visitor’s center. The restaurant was tasty (light breakfast included) and uses vegetables from their garden. The inn’s grounds were great for watching birds at the oasis and sunrise over the desert.

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Finches at the Oasis of Mara
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Cactus garden at the 29 Palms Inn

 

Our next two nights we camped at one of thefull moon Park’s family campgrounds. I had wanted to book a site at Indian Cove to be a little more central, but when I made reservations in late December, Saturday was already booked. There are some first-come, first-serve campgrounds in the park, but with our long drive, I didn’t want to risk it. We ended up staying at the Black Rock Campground, which if a little further from the main park entrance, did have the advantage of being close to our route out of town the day we left, and they have the most Morning at the campgroundamenities of campgrounds in the park (I have to say, I am a fan of access to potable water). Some campsites were pretty large, but with nothing but a few Joshua trees for buffer, it did get a little noisy from some of the nearby campers. Not so noisy you couldn’t hear the coyotes crying in the early evening, though. There are some mid-range hiking trails in the area of the campground, but we didn’t check them out this trip. We did discover that Sam’s Market (and pizza and Indian food…) a few miles down the road in the town of Joshua Tree, had a good beer selection and other supplies, such as firewood.

 

Joshua Tree National Park: Hiking

Cholla Cactus GardenPerhaps because of the sparse nature of the desert and potentially high temperatures,  Joshua Tree seemed to be heavy on the shorter interpretive nature trails, with fewer of the longer half-day and day hike options I usually prefer. At least in terms of established trails – you may want to explore backpacking and backcountry hiking options to get further off the main roads. That being said, it was definitely worth checking out some of these nature trails, particularly as first-time visitors. One of my favorites was the Cholla Cactus Garden on the road that heads toward the southern entrance. They really do look like fuzzy teddy bears, but that’s a mistake you don’t want to make. Barker Dam was basically a dirty puddle when we were there, but you can still walk the trail to spot lizards, learn about different desert plants, and, if interested, see the pictographs “enhanced” by old movie crews.

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There are some short walking trails near this popular photo spot

One fun hike was the 49 Palms Oasis trail. The entrance to this trail is actually outside of the main park off of Canyon Rd. leading in from the town of 29 Palms. The trail climbs in and out of the oasis for about a ~3 mile round trip (you get most of the 300-ft elevation in the first half-mile, and I imagine part of the moderately strenuous rating is that there is very little shade on the trail). While the trail is sparse, the oasis is full of ponds and palms (I tried counting, but lost track). Much of the oasis is off limits to protect the ecosystem, but it was fun to spot the palms tucked into the hills on the hike in then get to spend some time in its shade listening to the sounds of frogs (not a noise I associate with the desert).

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49 Palms Oasis tucked into the canyon

Another little hike we did was the Pine City Trail, which required driving a few miles down a dirt road to get to the trailhead (no high clearance needed, but it was only one lane with no directionality that we could tell…). The trail was a nice walk ending in a canyon and highlighting some of the other types of trees of the desert (or should I say actual trees since the Joshua technically is not). The trailhead is also the base for exploring one of the mines in the park.Mojave desert

Joshua Tree National Park

This February, I made my first trip to Joshua Tree National Park. Joshua treeI knew it was a popular park for people from Southern California and rock climbers, of which I am neither, but we decided to make the 8-9 hour drive from the Bay Area for a long weekend. Joshua Tree encompasses portions of the Mojave and Colorado Deserts and is fun for checking out desert flora and fauna as well as exploring geology (whether or not you are climbing on it). We spent most of our time in the Mojave portion of the park, but at some point I’d like to head back and check out the Cottonwood Spring area in the Southern part of the park, which we didn’t hit up this trip due to time constraints and trail closures.

 

Joshua Tree bloomDesert floraOf course one highlight of the park is seeing the eponymous Joshua trees in all their Seuss-like glory. In mid-February, we were a little early for wildflowers (perhaps worsened by the fact it hadn’t yet rained this year due to the drought), but we did get to see a few Joshua trees with their fluffy white pinecone-esque blooms, particularly as we drove up to Keys View, where you can see the entire Coachella Valley, including a quite ominous-looking San Andreas Fault line.

One of many types of lizardsWe spotted lizards of several varieties throughout the park, and the oases and more inhabited areas were teeming with birdlife – we saw hummingbirds, finches, wrens, and Bartlett’s Quail amongst others. I was keeping my eyes open for big-horned sheep and the elusive desert tortoise, but no luck this trip. One day I will find a desert tortoise!  

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View of the San Andreas Fault from Keys View

I picked up four cancellations plus bonus stamps of a Joshua tree and a desert tortoise. The Twentynine Palms and Keys Ranch were available in the Twentynine Palms Visitor’s Center at the Oasis of Mara; Black Rock Nature Center is at the campground; and the Joshua Tree, CA cancelation is at the Visitor’s Center in the town of Joshua Tree. I did not collect Indian Cove or Cottonwood this trip. More on our trip to Joshua Tree in later posts.

 

Black Rock Cancellation  Joshua Tree Cancellation Keys Ranch Cancellation 29 Palms CancellationJoshua Tree Bonus Stamp