A Rockin’ Good Time At Joshua Tree National Park

For an long time now, we have lived about a 3-hour drive from Joshua Tree National Park. We’d often talked about going there, yet somehow it had always eluded us. So when I recently booked a day at the track at the BMW Performance Center in nearby Thermal, we decided it was high time to check this one off the list.

One Park, Two Deserts

Though it’s not very big, Joshua Tree National Park straddles two different deserts. The northern half lies in the Mojave Desert, while the southern half is a part of the Colorado Desert. There is one main road running through the park from the northwest to the southeast, and you can easily drive the length of the park in one day.

We chose to enter the park in the southeast corner and drive to the northwest, in order to have the sun at our back for better photographic light.

Wide Open Spaces in the Colorado Desert

The lower lying Colorado Desert has much less vegetation than the Mojave, leaving large plains of mainly just sand and scrub. Interspersed in these plains were some natural gardens of Ocotillo and Cholla Cactus. Both were in bloom in late March and they were beautiful to look at. Don’t get too close to the Chollas, though. Also known as Jumping Chollas, their barbs will come loose with the slightest contact and attach quite tenaciously to your skin and clothing.

Then There’s the Joshua Trees

As you head into the Mojave Desert, things change quite noticeably from the Colorado Desert. The Joshua trees that the park is named for start to appear, first some small ones here and there, and then more and bigger ones.

Joshua Trees are actually not trees at all. They’re succulents, part of the yucca family. The name is said to have come from Mormon settlers who thought the branches reminded them of the biblical story of Joshua. Whatever they are, the shapes their branches take certainly make them interesting and fun to look at.

But It’s Really About the Rocks

The cactus and the Joshua trees are nice, but the real attraction at the park is the rocks. There are six blocks of mountains that run through the park. A combination of tectonic movement and erosion have left areas throughout the park with huge piles of rounded boulders that are amazing to look at and fun to climb on, around, and through.

Most of the well-known formations, like Skull Rock, Arch Rock, Split Rock, and Heart Rock are easily reached from the main road, while others require a bit more strenuous hiking. In all, there’s plenty to see and do for all levels.

One of the most interesting things to see in the rocks are these so-called dikes. As molten rock was pushed to the surface, it would harden and then develop cracks. Later, when a new layer of rock was being pushed up, the molten rock would fill the cracks in the existing rocks, leaving these stripes of dissimilar rock.