Every time my wife and I visit the Palm Springs area, we take a day trip up to Joshua Tree National Park to do some hiking. It’s only about a 45 minute drive, but the landscape makes it seem like you are visiting a different planet. Last fall we were in Palm Desert for a few days and made one of these day trips up to Joshua Tree. We didn’t think about the fact that it was Veterans Day with free admission to the park so we waited in a long line of cars for about 45 minutes to get into the park.
It was rather crowded that day as families were looking for some pandemic friendly outdoor activities. We eventually got in and decided to do a couple of short hikes before heading back to Palm Desert. One of them was Hidden Valley Nature Trail, a very picturesque mile long trail through a high desert area surrounded by Joshua Tree’s unique rock formations.
Following desert trails is always a little tricky since the desert sand often leads in different directions. That was the beauty of this little one mile trail. It would lead you into these beautiful little canyons that ultimately were a dead end, but a nice diversion.
Once we got on the trail away from the picnic areas and parking lots, the crowds thinned out and we often had the trail to ourselves.
It’s no surprise that there are plenty of the park’s namesake trees along the trail. The Joshua tree is basically just a large type of yucca plant. It is unique to the Mojave Desert and grows nowhere else in the world. The Joshua trees in the park look like everything from bushy palms to something out of a Dr. Suess book. As you saw in the first picture of this post, parts of the park are dotted with thousands of the plants. They are very slow growing, only adding 2-3 inches a year. If you see a large bushy one, it could be 60 to 150 years old.
This was certainly not our most strenuous hike in Joshua Tree National Park, but it does have plenty to offer. There were a variety of interesting plants and rock formations as you can see in the photos below.
Even though we were hiking in November, it was surprising how many desert plants were flowering.
And if you tire of enjoying the natural beauty that abounds in the park, Joshua Tree is one of the most popular rock climbing and bouldering spots in California. We ran across several groups of climbers enjoying the challenge of climbing up the faces of some of the larger rocks.
After spending a few hours doing short hikes in the park, we decided to head back to Palm Desert. If you are ever in this part of California and want to experience a truly unique landscape and ecosystem, this is a National park worth visiting.
