Joshua Tree National Park is located 2 hours from Los Angeles East. The road is very impressive (with sometimes six lines, for me it was crazy as I was living in New Jersey and it wasn’t crazy as there). Then we began to see the mountains, the rocks and finally the desert.
Joshua Tree National Park is in the Mojave Desert. This park is approximately 800 000 acres and stood there for 5 000 years. The name of the park came from his tree: the Joshua Tree. The Mormons called him Joshua because of the Ancient Book because when they saw this place, it remembers them the Promise Land. There are around 1.5 million Joshua Tree in the park.
Indian communities were present at this time, and you can see that when you are walking in the park with their drawings on the rocks. We can ask themselves how they survived with such an extreme temperature (when I was there, it was 96 degrees), and in winter, there is snow!
It’s an excellent national park where the landscapes are amazing. If you have kids, don’t forget to make a stop at the Visitor Center so they will be able to get their Junior Ranger Badge (in every National Park, they all can have on, after doing their little research on the park)
What to do:
It’s your choice, and you will have tons of things to do if you want to.
–Sleep under the stars
-Get out into the wilderness
They have a lot of different trails, choose the one you prefer, but don’t forget to bring a lot of water (we are in the desert!). You will have the easiest one and the hardest one (don’t try these ones when it’s too hot!)
-Join the park paparazzi
This park is fantastic if you love taking pictures like me. You have a variety of landscapes: rounded blocks of coarse-grained monzogranite. A plump chuckwalla basks in the sun. The bizarre branches of Joshua Tree. Wide-open desert skies. The fluttering flight of a bord into the sheltering arms of a catclaw acacia. Helmeted rocks climbers gracefully working their way up a rock face.
-Spy the differents birds: greater roadrunner, phainopepla, mockingbird, verdin, cactus wren, rock wrens mourning drove, Le Conte’s thrasher, Gambel’s quail, red-tailed hawk, American kestrel, Cooper’s hawk, prairie falcon, white-crowned sparrow, dark-eyed junco, sage sparrow, cedar waxwing, American robin, hermit trust and so many more.
-Experience Dark Night Skies
-Biking
-Rock climbing
-Backpacking
-Horseback riding
-Wildflower viewing
-Keys Ranch Tour
-Driving Four Wheel Drive Roads (only in the Geology Tour Road)
Enjoy this park!
