Unforgiving Land

Joshua Tree National Park in the high desert of California is home to an otherworldly landscape, filled with California juniper, desert scrub oak, yucca and cholla cactus, and, of course, the namesake Joshua trees.

Camping and hiking are popular activities in this park, though it is important to remember that this is a desert with searing heat in the summer and almost no water to be found. When you do go hiking, understand that the many varieties of cholla cactus (like the silver cholla, pictured here), are uniquely suited to adhering to skin, clothes, and shoes, and can become quite difficult to remove.

Despite this, Joshua Tree NP is a beautiful place, and popular with photographers, in particular, for capturing unique floral and plant-life opportunities, dark skies, and diverse wildlife found here.

Lost Horse Valley Forest - Wide

There is a Joshua Tree forest located in the Lost Horse Valley of Mojave Desert, just north of the Little San Bernardino Mountains, which is, of course, smack dab in the middle of Joshua Tree National Park.

These plants, which are the species Yucca brevifolia, grow tall (up to approximately 50'), quickly for a desert environment, and have deep root systems, that reach up to 36' in search of water in their native desert climates. Since they are not truly trees, they don't have growth rings in their trunks, rather thousands of small fibers, making it difficult to determine their age. It is thought that some survive a thousand years.

Most of the places we explored throughout Joshua Tree NP had relatively spartan populations of the namesake trees; but along the road to Keys View, and the Queen Valley Road, there are forests of the trees, which our children find amazingly like the truffala trees imagined by Dr. Seuss

Lost Horse Valley Forest

There is a Joshua Tree forest located in the Lost Horse Valley of Mojave Desert, just north of the Little San Bernardino Mountains, which is, of course, smack dab in the middle of Joshua Tree National Park.

These plants, which are the species Yucca brevifolia, grow tall (up to approximately 50'), quickly for a desert environment, and have deep root systems, that reach up to 36' in search of water in their native desert climates. Since they are not truly trees, they don't have growth rings in their trunks, rather thousands of small fibers, making it difficult to determine their age. It is thought that some survive a thousand years.

Most of the places we explored throughout Joshua Tree NP had relatively spartan populations of the namesake trees; but along the road to Keys View, and the Queen Valley Road, there are forests of the trees, which our children find amazingly like the truffala trees imagined by Dr. Seuss.