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We got up early today and as soon as John realized how early he went back to bed. When we did get going we headed to the west entrance of Joshua Tree, our plan was to drive Park Blvd through a portion of the park and scout for a trail to hike tomorrow or Monday. We drove up into the mountains on California Hwy 62 and turned onto Park Blvd and into the park.
California Hwy 62.
This park is huge and we will visit only a small portion; we were surprised that the park features a lot of weathered rock formations along with the flatter desert. Today the park was busy and there seemed to be a rock climber on every piece of rock higher that 10 feet.
The view from Park Boulevard.
Look close, there are climbers at the top of this peak to the right of center.
Same climbers.
Climbers at the top.
Climbers on their way to the top.
The rock formations were a pleasant surprise, we decided to hike the Hidden Valley nature trail which is a one mile loop. At one time the valley was used by rustlers to hide stolen livestock, the valley only had one access point and had an environment that included grasses, pinion pine and scrub oaks which was quit different from the surrounding dessert; we enjoyed the rock formations.
Hidden Valley.
Sandy on the Hidden Valley Nature Trail.
The Joshua Tree is part of the Yucca family.
Who is lagging behind today?
Another climber inside Hidden Valley, not for me thanks!
A native critter.
Rock formations inside Hidden Valley.
Sandy gave John a hug and kiss for getting her to California, John was happy!
What kind of hat is that?
We turned off Park Blvd and drove out to Keys View; on a clear day you can see Mexico and based on what we saw, today was pretty clear as we could see at least 93 miles.
The Joshua Trees along the road to Keys View.
As seen from Keys View, the dark ridge across the center of the image is part of the San Andreas Fault.
The Salton Sea from Keys View.
The view from Keys View.
After the overlook we decided to head back to the mothership and check on KoKo who has had an upset stomach for the past few days so we drove out of the north entrance and down into Twentynine Palms and Hwy 62.
Driving out of the north entrance toward Twentynine Palms.
3 comments:
Great tour of Joshua Tree. Thanks. Those are nice pics of the climbers, too.
A timely post because we may be traveling & hiking some of those very same roads & trails in a couple weeks & then heading out through 29 Palms as well.....
Lucky you that you had good views from Keys View! Every time we've gone there (we live near here) it's been smoggy and we couldn't see Palm Springs, much less the Salton Sea. We hiked in Hidden Valley last time we were there - so beautiful, isn't it?!
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