Monday 16th Feb: Joshua Tree National Park

The park was created in 1994 and consists of part Mojave Desert and part Colorado Desert, 1,234 sq. miles in total. Next question- what’s a Joshua tree? We’d never heard of it either, so we’d best show you a photo. Everywhere we went there were Joshua trees, thousands upon thousands of them.

The tree is part of the Yucca family and can reach 40 ft. tall. It grows only in the Mojave Desert, and was named by the Mormon settlers who connected it in some way to Joshua in the Bible. The Park Ranger at the visitor centre said the park contains the biggest Joshua tree in the world. Our initial reaction was, “Gee, that’s really something”, until sometime later when the penny dropped- the world’s total population of Joshua trees actually grows here in the park, so one of them must be….

First stop was the Hidden Valley, supposedly used by 19^th century cattle rustlers. Access was along a rocky path through the jumble of rocks between the two higher outcrops.

Once inside, the valley floor was fairly flat, but circled by the granite boulder cliffs. Some of these were challenging enough to attract climbing groups, for example, the two small figures, top right. At least we hope that’s who they were rather than some of the OAP bus outing that took the wrong path.  

 Entering into the climbing spirit, I ascended a grade 1 difficulty tree (not a Joshua tree but an unidentified dead tree) for a photo. One of those, “I’ll take one of you, if you’ll take one of us”, type of photos that we tourists do at the drop of a hat. It appears that Jane is giving me a piggy back but I’m in fact stood on a branch all of 3 ft.from the ground.

Now here’s a precariously balanced armchair rock. How did it ever get there? No doubt it was used by the rustlers to relax in while looking out for the sheriff and the posse.

Leaving hidden valley we drove along good tarmac roads through similar rock formations and Joshua trees. Some of the rocks have acquired names like skull rock, standing about 30 ft.tall. A relic of the time when giants roamed the Earth. 

The road gradually winds up to a viewpoint at 5,300 ft. It’s a huge panorama, or would have been in the absence of mist, all the way to Mexico. Our campsite is somewhere down there.

The road loops eventually back to the main road and back to the campsite in the mist.  So we saw another aspect of the desert and very interesting it was.

On Wednesday we move to San Diego