![]() I'm not sure whether it's cliche or cool to listen to U2 while driving through Joshua Tree National Park, but that's exactly what we were doing as we headed into this park. It was actually relatively full of people, which I was not expecting, but made sense given its proximity to Los Angeles. Visiting this park for the first time, I realized something. I'm used to hiking-parks. Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Arches, and parks like them usually have trails to reach the good stuff. At Joshua Tree, there isn't "good stuff" in the sense that I'm used to. There was no long trail to reach a cool sight, like Delicate Arch or Yosemite Falls. Yes, there were trails, and yes, we hiked them, but the landscape was pretty consistent throughout the park. There were a lot of joshua trees and a lot of rocks. This was a rock climbing park. And I don't mean that in the sense that there is nothing to do but rock climb. That's not the case at all. What I mean is that going to Joshua Tree made me really wish I knew anything about rock climbing. I wanted to have the full park experience, as is my goal at all the parks I visit, and at this one, rock climbing seemed to be a big part of that. I am not a rock climber. I have never geared up and climbed an actual cliff, ever. I've climbed one of those fake walls, but even then, it was kind of an activity for kids, which I was at the time. It wasn't a legitimate practice wall. That being said, we found plenty of things to do in this park for non-rock climbers. Hidden Valley and Barker Dam To be honest, these two trails were not too different. They were each great, don't get me wrong, but if you're on a limited time frame, I would say just pick one of them, then see something else in the park. The main difference was Barker Dam had water, which was kind of flabbergasting given the environment we were in. Just looking around Joshua Tree, the land is dusty and almost barren. There is definitely a beauty to that, but it was just a weird mix of images to see this pond in the middle of the desert. Other than that, these trails were beautiful for the same reasons: cool rock formations and interesting desert plants. It doesn't sound as cool as it was when I write it out like that, but it is cool. I definitely do recommend these trails.
![]() Cholla Cactus Garden My family was kind of tired and ready to be done by the time I insisted that we see the Cholla Cactus Garden. I had read about it in my research, and I wanted to see what all the hype was about. But, it was kind of far away from the rest of the sights we had seen that day. (It wasn't actually that far away. It was just far for a group who was tired and running out of patience.) So every time we saw some cacti with a parking cut-out on the side of the road, someone in the car would go "is that it?" thinking that surely it couldn't be any farther down the road. It actually was pretty amusing that we had been distracted by these other stops, because when we got to the Cholla Cactus Garden, we knew it was it. There were beautiful cacti everywhere. It was way more impressive than any of the other stops we had mistakenly made. This trail is only a quarter-mile loop, but I still highly recommend it. By the time you reach this part of the park, the joshua trees are gone and the cacti have take over. You can see mountains in the background, and it is just a lovely walk. I found myself pointing at cacti and saying "Ooooh, look at this one!" probably a few times too many. At the very least, this park was a stunning drive. It's such an interesting landscape to see all these crazy trees that look like they came straight out of a Dr Seuss book and rock formations that make you feel like you're on a foreign planet from Galaxy Quest. If you're a fan of exploring, I think you'll like this park.
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About the blog.I started this blog in 2017 with the goal of seeing all the U.S. National Parks and writing about them. But as I kept writing and posting, I realized there's so much more I want to document in my life. So, the blog grew into something much broader and even more special to my heart. Archives.
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