In the Shadow of Giant Boulders: Joshua Tree

Yesterday, I went for a long day-trip with Tracy and some of her friends from residency to Joshua Tree National Park, which, at 3 hours, is the closest national park to San Diego. For those of you scoring at home, Joshua Tree is my twentieth national park visited, following (in no particular order): Rainier, North Cascades, Olympic, Crater Lake, Badlands, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, Mesa Verde, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Zion, Yosemite, Glacier Bay, Hawaii Volcanoes, Redwood, Rocky Mountain, and Everglades. Congratulations, Joshua Tree.

We actually went there to do an interesting hike in the Wonderland Rocks area of the park, on the northern edge. This area basically looks like a bunch of boulders and other rock formations piled very high, which creates unusual shapes and spaces within which to crawl. It's really hard to explain, so hopefully the pictures do it justice! We hike mostly up for the better part of an hour and a half before returning to the car and entering the park through the conventional route. We saw some Joshua Trees on the way in, but hadn't yet seen any in the park land.

A Joshua Tree is actually a relative of the yucca plant. They only grow in very specific climates, like the high Mojave desert, and so there's aren't a ton of places in the world where you'll find them. Given the arid climate, it's impressive that such relatively large trees could even exist at all, but there are veritable "forests" of them as you drive through the park. Very interesting indeed.

All in all, it reminded me a lot of the parks in Utah, with a bright blue sky creating a pleasant contrast against the yellow and pink rocks. Certainly a different ball of wax from the parks I'm used to in the Pacific Northwest!

Joshua Tree, March 2007