Joshua Tree National Park - part one
Apr. 12th, 2026 02:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tiggymalvern
After the tennis finals at Indian Wells, I drove up to my overnight hotel five minutes from the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park. 'Up' is the relevant word here - it's only a 45 minute drive, but Indian Wells is at an elevation of 89 feet/27m above sea level. The northern entrance of Joshua Tree is around 3000 feet/915m. This was beneficial, because while the forecast for Indian Wells on the Monday was 104F/40C, at Joshua Tree it was 86F/30C. Far more pleasant!
One section of Joshua Tree is known for having dark skies good for seeing the Milky Way, and I'd had thoughts of going out there for the sunset then staying to see the stars. But by the time I'd bought sandwiches, filled up with petrol and checked into my hotel, it became obvious as I was driving that I wasn't going to make it there for sunset, so I turned and drove up a random dirt road towards the hills and waited for the sunset there instead.
A flower angled towards the last rays of the sun.
Sun setting by the park boundary.
Low light tinting the clouds to the north.
It turned out to be the perfect choice of road to hang out on too, because there I saw a greater roadrunner :-) I've looked for them before in Nevada and Arizona without success, so I was thrilled 😁
Then I debated whether to go on to the dark skies spot, driving all the way at night, with only a rough idea where to go, and with plans to get up early the next morning too followed by a lot more driving, so in the end I decided to go back to the hotel and sleep instead. However pretty the night skies are at Joshua Tree, they're probably not as good as at Mauna Kea...
I left the hotel just before 6am the next day and drove into Joshua Tree with a crescent moon and the first hints of light in the sky. I kept stopping every 5 minutes down the road to hop out of the car and take photos. Everything was too gorgeous to resist.
I arrived at Hidden Valley at 6.35am, which was an excellent move. It's one of the busiest spots in the park and during peak season (which March is) the websites say the parking area there can fill up. When I arrived, there were only two cars there before me. By the time I left at 7.45am, it was around 20.
It's recommended not to kill yourself when hiking in the desert, because people sometimes do.
Hidden Valley at dawn. I was the only person in there at first, but not for long.
A red barrel cactus among the rocks.
Black-throated sparrow greeting the day. They were everywhere.
Light hitting the highest rocks as the sun climbed.
Besides the Joshua trees, Hidden Valley contains some pinyon-juniper trees. These are hangovers from before the area became desert, and a few higher elevation, part-shaded spots like Hidden Valley still trap enough moisture for them to survive there.
Joshua tree flowers. Joshua trees are part of the yucca family, which becomes pretty evident when you look closer.
Looping back around towards the entrance to Hidden Valley. The valley used to be more hidden before a settler blew a narrow gap in the surrounding ring of rocks so he could graze cattle in there. That was just a few years before it was made a national park.
My next port of call was the road up to Keys View in the Little San Bernadino Mountains, one of the highest points in the park at 5,185 ft/1,581m. I was very glad I'd researched the park online before I went and made notes, because there was no signage for this at all. It was just an unmarked, unnamed road that went off to the right and I would have missed it completely if I hadn't been paying attention. Very odd.
The road up to Keys View goes through classic Joshua Tree landscape. The park is split into two halves - this northern and western part is the higher elevation Mojave desert, which is all about the oddly shaped rocks and the oddly shaped trees.
Looking east from Keys View over Palm springs to the San Jacinto mountains. Very few Joshua trees up at the top, it's too high and cold for them.
South over the Coachella valley a mile below to the Santa Rosa mountains. The San Andreas fault runs all along the length of the valley. On a clear day, you can see Mexico from here, but there was too much haze for that. Mexico would be in that cloud on the left.
Only one other car showed up at the viewpoint while I was there - hardly surprising when the park seems to be trying to keep it a secret. I found another life bird up there, a Gambel's quail 😁
When I descended back down from Keys View to the main park road, it was around 9.30am and my solitary time in the park was over. The crowds were arriving...
One section of Joshua Tree is known for having dark skies good for seeing the Milky Way, and I'd had thoughts of going out there for the sunset then staying to see the stars. But by the time I'd bought sandwiches, filled up with petrol and checked into my hotel, it became obvious as I was driving that I wasn't going to make it there for sunset, so I turned and drove up a random dirt road towards the hills and waited for the sunset there instead.
A flower angled towards the last rays of the sun.
Sun setting by the park boundary.
Low light tinting the clouds to the north.
It turned out to be the perfect choice of road to hang out on too, because there I saw a greater roadrunner :-) I've looked for them before in Nevada and Arizona without success, so I was thrilled 😁
Then I debated whether to go on to the dark skies spot, driving all the way at night, with only a rough idea where to go, and with plans to get up early the next morning too followed by a lot more driving, so in the end I decided to go back to the hotel and sleep instead. However pretty the night skies are at Joshua Tree, they're probably not as good as at Mauna Kea...
I left the hotel just before 6am the next day and drove into Joshua Tree with a crescent moon and the first hints of light in the sky. I kept stopping every 5 minutes down the road to hop out of the car and take photos. Everything was too gorgeous to resist.
I arrived at Hidden Valley at 6.35am, which was an excellent move. It's one of the busiest spots in the park and during peak season (which March is) the websites say the parking area there can fill up. When I arrived, there were only two cars there before me. By the time I left at 7.45am, it was around 20.
It's recommended not to kill yourself when hiking in the desert, because people sometimes do.
Hidden Valley at dawn. I was the only person in there at first, but not for long.
A red barrel cactus among the rocks.
Black-throated sparrow greeting the day. They were everywhere.
Light hitting the highest rocks as the sun climbed.
Besides the Joshua trees, Hidden Valley contains some pinyon-juniper trees. These are hangovers from before the area became desert, and a few higher elevation, part-shaded spots like Hidden Valley still trap enough moisture for them to survive there.
Joshua tree flowers. Joshua trees are part of the yucca family, which becomes pretty evident when you look closer.
Looping back around towards the entrance to Hidden Valley. The valley used to be more hidden before a settler blew a narrow gap in the surrounding ring of rocks so he could graze cattle in there. That was just a few years before it was made a national park.
My next port of call was the road up to Keys View in the Little San Bernadino Mountains, one of the highest points in the park at 5,185 ft/1,581m. I was very glad I'd researched the park online before I went and made notes, because there was no signage for this at all. It was just an unmarked, unnamed road that went off to the right and I would have missed it completely if I hadn't been paying attention. Very odd.
The road up to Keys View goes through classic Joshua Tree landscape. The park is split into two halves - this northern and western part is the higher elevation Mojave desert, which is all about the oddly shaped rocks and the oddly shaped trees.
Looking east from Keys View over Palm springs to the San Jacinto mountains. Very few Joshua trees up at the top, it's too high and cold for them.
South over the Coachella valley a mile below to the Santa Rosa mountains. The San Andreas fault runs all along the length of the valley. On a clear day, you can see Mexico from here, but there was too much haze for that. Mexico would be in that cloud on the left.
Only one other car showed up at the viewpoint while I was there - hardly surprising when the park seems to be trying to keep it a secret. I found another life bird up there, a Gambel's quail 😁
When I descended back down from Keys View to the main park road, it was around 9.30am and my solitary time in the park was over. The crowds were arriving...
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