Joshua Tree National Park: Cholla cacti, Cottonwood Spring oasis, and dinosaurs at the drive-thru

March 14 was our last day at the park.  We drove south as we planned to head back to LA along a different route.

These are Cholla cacti.  We would have liked to get out and look at them here at the "Cholla cactus garden", but there was roadwork going on and we couldn't stop.  I got this slightly blurry photo from the car though, they are something to see, backlit by the sun:

Our destination was the Cottonwood Springs trail.  What do you know, there were Chollas there too:

An entrance to an old mine shaft along the trail:

I don't know what these are called but they are very surreal looking plants:

This is the oasis at Cottonwood Spring, it's a bigger and lusher one than the one we saw yesterday:

Here are some other tourists heading towards it, for scale:

Cottonwood trees also grow along the spring downstream from the oasis.  It was March so they were just coming into leaf:

Some fan palms at the base of the oasis palms:

These palms are tall, and shaggy, having never been pruned the way the urban ones usually are:

So that was it for Joshua Tree park!  Didn't take long to get back to the outskirts of Los Angeles.  And of course, in Los Angeles, anything is possible, including dinosaurs at the Burger King drive-thru:

That was the last park we visited in 2013.  I'm itching to visit another, maybe this spring.

Joshua Tree National Park: an oasis, some even better rocks, and a lookout

First thing on March 13, we visited a small oasis, the Oasis of Mara.  It's just a couple of small clumps of palm trees, but it was an important water source back in the day:

Next, we went to see the Arch rock and hike the trail around it.  Here's me and the Arch:

The best part of this trail was actually off the beaten path, in behind the arch rock.  We climbed over a rock, squeezed through a couple others, and came out to these natural paths in between some really cool rock formations:

Next, we went to hike the Skull rock trail.  Here's the skull:

After that, a lookout.  This looks to the valley southwest of the park.

Driving back towards the hotel, we passed through some groves of Joshua trees where they were particularly lush and tree-like:

... and that was March 13.  Next up ... March 14!  Can you believe it?  Coming soon ...

Joshua Tree National Park: Rock Formations

I'm actually going to restrain myself and not show you as many photos as I usually do, partly because the landscape of Joshua Tree National Park is a little more uniform than many of the other parks I have been to so far.

Here are some examples of the ubiquitous rock formations found there.  They were formed underground during geologically wetter times, and the cracks and breaks were formed by water percolating down and dissolving minerals, and forming boulders out of what had been solid rock.  Then when more arid times came along, the loose sand that had been formed by this process washed or blew away in storms, gradually leaving these boulder towers upright and exposed:

Not everything is a rock, there are plants and trees too, although the average tree looks like it has seen better and wetter days:

More Joshuas, forming sparse forests in some areas:

Some ruins out in the desert.  They're related to gold mining in the area I think, and possibly attempts at ranching ... I don't have the guidebook up here with me to refresh my memory

Two landowners didn't like each other and one tried to block access to the other from crossing his land.  One of 'em didn't survive the conflict.  "Here is where Worth Bagley bit the dust at the hand of W. F. Keys, May 11, 1943."

Here are some abandoned vehicles in the same area, at the Wall Street Mill, where they crushed rock to remove gold:

Here are the ruins of the mill:

That's all for March 12 ... more to come soon ...

Joshua Tree National Park

As the year draws to a close, I am feeling increasingly guilty that I still have never posted my photos from my trip last March to Joshua Tree National Park.  So ... today is the day ... that I start, at least.  It's not quite a New Year's Resolution, more of a training resolution ... but I will show you my evidence that I visited this very interesting place.

It's a very accessible national park, too.  It's around 3 hours drive east of Los Angeles, depending on traffic.  For most of that drive you are still in the built-up area of greater L.A., and even after you leave the city you are soon into more built-up areas.  The park is a gem sitting between the ex-urban sprawl.

So to start things off ... let's look at some Joshua Trees!  Our arrival day, March 11, we just did a couple of short trails around the western edge of the park.

Here's a close up of some Joshua tree foliage:

They don't grow very thickly in their arid conditions:

Some of them get pretty bushy:

This shows how close the park is to the surrounding communities - this is looking north, at the west end of the park.

So that is just a taste to start, but I am coming back very soon with more ... really!