One feels so very tiny here in this vast landscape.
Petroglypys, if only we could read the stories they tell us.
Left from cattle rustling days, a dam. We also saw some tools, and a water trough. Hard to imagine trying to live, and work cattle in this desolate desert area. How hard life must have been.
Climbers....yep they're really there. We were quite a distance and this is a zoom folks. Gives you an idea of the size of things there.
Fantastic outline here of a Joshua Tree against the dark and angry sky of an approaching storm.
Hiking, camping, siteseeing via car, climbing??? Explore nature in many ways. Joshua Tree National Park--something for people of all generations. Got a family, stop in the visitors station and sign the kids up for The Jr. Ranger Program. You'll be surprised how much you learn with them. There are Ranger lead walks, talks, and evening programs. Interested in geology? You'll be in heaven here. Desert yes.....but not in the way many of us think of a desert. It was pretty nippy the day we were there, the climbers though probably liked the cooler temperatures. We were there in February. We spent a day there, our accomodations were in Desert Springs. If traveling from other areas, I would suggest packing a lunch as nothing really much is available along the way.
Entrance into the park is $15.00 (unless you have a Golden Annual Pass). Camp grounds vary from $10.00 to $15.00.
Like to go off road, ride horses? Those activities also exist here.
Layer, take water regardless of the time of year you go.
The Joshua Tree (Yucca Brevifolia)is a giant member of the lily family. If you see a Joshua Tree, chances are good you're in The Majave Desert, but you might also see it growing along side a Saguaro Catcus in the Sonoran Desert in western Arizona or mixed with pines in the San Bernardino Mountains.
Mormon immigrants that reach the Colorado River named the tree after the biblical figure Joshua. They felt the tree's limb were guided travelers westward. All tree limbs reach up to obtain the light, so to me they seem no different than other trees.
You do see the landscape change as you drive through the park from The Mojave Desert to The Colorado Desert.
Hope you enjoy these few of the many pictures I took that day.
You can see in all these pictures how cloudy, cool and gray it was while we were on vacation. Surely no need for sun screen, but I hadn't expected to need a hooded sweatshirt and a coat while in sunny California.
