National Park Adventures
Ashley Eberhart, your host, takes you through her trips to various National Parks, gives recommendations on the best places to eat and stay, and provides a bit of history along the way!
Keep in touch with us on social media!
Instagram: @_nationalparkadventures
National Park Adventures
S2 E1: Journey Through Joshua Tree: Exploring Trails, Tales, and Treasures of the Iconic National Park
Buckle up as I transport you to the captivating landscapes of Joshua Tree National Park in California! This episode promises to guide you through the mesmerizing terrain of this National Park, brimming with rich history, diverse trails, and bustling activities. Let's discover the tales of the park's first inhabitants, cattlemen, miners, and homesteaders, and honor the legacy of Minerva Hoyet, a staunch environmentalist who contributed immensely to the preservation of this desert landscape. Along the way, we'll explore the wonderous attractions of Covington Flats, Eureka Peak Overlook, and the Cholla Cactus Garden, among others.
Strap on your hiking boots and get ready to conquer the trails of Joshua Tree! From the scenic vistas of Hike View Nature Trail to the intriguing formations of Skull Rock on Discovery Trail, from the challenging climb of Ryan Mountain to the elusive fan palms of Lost Palms Oasis Trail - I cover it all. I also shed light on cycling and rock climbing opportunities for adventure enthusiasts. So, whether you're planning your next big adventure or simply seeking a virtual escapade, this episode is your ticket to the heart of Joshua Tree National Park. Join us on this vivid journey and let's create unforgettable memories together!
If you enjoyed the episode, please consider rating the show and/or leaving a review, it truly means the world to me!
Follow National Park Adventures on Instagram (@_nationalparkadventures)
Get ready to learn all about America's national parks with National Park Adventures, and I'm your host, ashley. So strap on your hiking boots and let's hit the trail.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone, welcome back to the National Park Adventure podcast. This is your host, ashley, and this is the first episode of season two. I am so excited for this season. You guys. We have got a lot planned for you. Just a sneak peek of a few parks that we're going to be visiting is Acadia, crater Lake, bryce Olympic and Glacier Bay, and we'll have some more other than that, but just wanted to give you guys a quick little teaser of what we're doing. So it's going to be a fun, fun season and I appreciate you all giving me some time off. We have been very busy wedding planning and that has taken a lot of my extra time, but I have a little bit of downtime now. We're just kind of in the coasting zone right before the wedding, so very, very excited. But let's get started. We are talking about Joshua Tree National Park today and I'm really personally excited about this one. Andrew and I are going to be going here in a couple months and we're just so excited to see it and I was really loving researching all of the things for you guys.
Speaker 2:So Joshua Tree is located near Palm Springs, california. It's around 800,000 acres, which is just slightly bigger than Rhode Island. It was established on October 31st in 1994, making it the 53rd National Park and the park layout kind of think of it as like an upside down triangle shape. There's three main entrances, however, the west is the most popular. This one is by the town of Joshua Tree itself and it also has a visitor center at the entrance. And if you're going to be visiting this park during like peak season or peak hours, definitely expect a little bit of a line just to enter the park, since this is one of the most popular entrances. The other option is the north and this is by 29 Palms Town, which is also a really great place to stay. It's not overly far from the west side either, so just a really good option. And the last one is the south. This is by Cottonwood Spring and this is probably one of the least visited areas of the park. So if you're looking to get away from the tourists and other people, this would be the side of the park I would recommend you going.
Speaker 2:This park actually has four visitor centers. The first one is the Joshua Tree visitor center that we talked about by the west entrance. So this is technically not like within park boundaries, so it's a little outside. It does have a cafe, and their exhibits include geology, deserts, historical sites that you can find throughout the park, so lots of history in this one. The next one is the Black Rock Nature Center, and this is on the west side of the park, near the Black Rock Campground. This one's smaller in nature, but it does have an art gallery and there's a lot of hikes that start in this area as well. The third one is the Joshua Tree Cultural Center, and this is outside of the park, on the north entrance. There's also a lot of parking here, so just note that if you need to find a good spot to park, this would be where I'd recommend. And the last one is the Cottonwood Visitor Center, south entrance, and it is inside the park and it will be going through some upgrades in the next couple of years. Now for your entrance fees you're going to purchase these on recreationgov and fora vehicle pass. For seven days it's $35.
Speaker 2:There isn't any time to entry in this park, which is nice, but it can be busy during its peak season and personally my recommendation for the best time to visit would be between October and April. This is because, since it's in the Southern California part, it's gonna be really hot in the summer, which you could still totally go during the summer. It's not like you can't, it's just going to be warmer in the afternoon and you might not want to spend that time outside. So if you go to this October to April timeframe, you're gonna just get some cooler temperatures, so you're just gonna get more time to explore. You can also go in late February to May. This is like the wildflower season, so really really cool opportunity. There. The summers can be pretty warm. The average temperature is probably around 100 degrees. So I would just keep that in mind if you are planning to visit this park, and I would also suggest anywhere between three to four days if you want to see everything in this park. I definitely think you could do it in a couple of days if you are okay with missing a few items.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about how we're going to get to Joshua Tree. The first is airports. So there's actually three pretty decent options for this, which I thought was really nice. First one is Palm Springs. Now, this is a smaller airport, but it is really close to the park. It's only like an hour drive, so a really really good option here. The second one is Los Angeles. This one has more flight options. It is obviously a much larger airport. The drive is a little farther about two and a half hours and this will be the airport that Andrew and I fly into. It just had a better flight options for us and that's why we decided to choose it. So definitely a good option there. And then your last one is San Diego, and that's going to be anywhere from two and a half to three hours, so still not a terrible drive, just a little bit longer than Palm Springs. But again, palm Springs is a smaller airport and so that kind of comes with limited flight availability times. Now, when you're going to navigate around Joshua Tree, there's not any shuttles in this park, so you're definitely going to need a rental car or your own car that you drove to the park, something like that. You won't really be able to see much without one of those.
Speaker 2:So let's jump into some history. The area of Joshua Tree has been home to humans for over like 500,000 years. Oh, 5,000 years, not 500, my bad, 5,000 years. In the 1800s, cattlemen brought their cows into the area for grass actually at the time, but very quickly the resources were getting depleted, so miners started coming into the area to look for gold during the gold rush. And then the 1900s came and that brought a lot of homesteaders into the area. They built cabins and wells and they planted crops, but the area was just not really developed until around the 1920s.
Speaker 2:At this time Minerva Hoyet, who was a local. She was worried about the preservation of the landscape due to all of this new development. Now Minerva was from Mississippi, but she moved to the area after marrying her husband. She organized lots of charity events and absolutely loved to garden, and following the death of her husband and son, she basically dedicated the rest of her life to protecting the desert landscape. So she founded the International Desert Conservation League and the goal of this organization was to form national parks, and she also hosted several desert exhibits in Boston, new York and London. Honestly, she seems like a really cool person. I am very impressed when reading her resume and learning more about her.
Speaker 2:She also served on the California State Commission and she basically just recommended new parks. So that includes Death Valley, the Anza Borrego Desert, the Little Sand, bernanino Mountains all of those but for Joshua Tree and specifically she brought in biologists and desert ecologists to help her create reports that she could take and include in her pitch to the people to create a national park. So her first breakthrough for this area to become a national park was actually with FDR. She was introduced to him and he basically recommended the area to the National Park Service and was like you need to look into this area. That seems like a great area for a national park. So in 1936, fdr signed the area to be a national monument. Now, it wasn't the park that Minerva was hoping for, but it's a designation that would keep the area and the plants and the preservation of the land reserved and not really being able to um get developed. And so you know, minerva really did succeed in her goal. Now, when this area was designated as a national monument, it consisted of around 825,000 acres, but it was then reduced in the 1950s by 265,000 acres, and that was for mining purposes. However, in 1994, the Desert Protection Bill elevated this area to a park status and added back 234,000 acres, so most of what was taken away for mining.
Speaker 2:Now let's talk about the fun things to do in this park. So some sites to see. First off is the Covington Flats. This is a dirt road, kind of like northwestern corner of the park. It's about 10 miles and it has really good views of the park and several hikes start off this road as well. The Eureka Peak Overlook this is about 5,520 feet. It's a really good overlook and you basically get panoramic views of the valley. You can see Coachella Valley, desert springs, lots of mountains, all the fun things there, and this is again kind of on the west side of the park, the next section.
Speaker 2:We had a few things in this little area here, so it's the Hidden Valley area sites and think of like middle of the park, slightly west so you have the Wonderland of Rocks and this is basically a maze of granite rock formations. Often you see desert bighorn sheep here. You can also take a hike to the center of this area by taking the Barker Dam trail and it's a pretty easy hike 1.1 mile loop. It will only take like 30 to 45 minutes, so a pretty easy hike for you guys. The second one is Ryan Ranch and this is the remains of an old homestead. You can take a really short trail like I think it's just a mile to see like the windmill and cemetery and things like that.
Speaker 2:And lastly in this area is the Keys Ranch. This is a really fun like interactive stop where you can learn about ranchers who lived in the desert. This was home to Bill Key from 1917 to 1969. And rangers typically have guided tours here from October to May. It's only like $10 for adults and $5 for kids, so a pretty reasonable option. The tour includes the ranch house, the schoolhouse, a workshop and the store and you can make reservations on Recurationgov up to 60 days in advance. So a really fun little interactive option. And just to know this area, the Keys Ranch, it's about a 40 minute drive from the Joshua Tree Visitor Center to the ranch, so you can kind of gauge a little bit of timing there.
Speaker 2:And for the next area, this is the Queen Valley area. This is like the North-ish entrance area and this has a lot of Joshua trees in particular, some old mines, villages and just a lot of hiking options in this area as well. So one of the hikes that I found in this area is the Wall Street Mill Trail. This is about 2.2 miles, about an hour and a half, and an easy, rated easy hike. It goes through an old mining area and it ends at one of the best preserved preserved gold mines within this national park. So a really cool option and definitely one that I want to be doing on my trip.
Speaker 2:Now, this next one is a must-see. If you're going to Joshua Tree, you need to see this. It's the Cola Cactus Garden. Pretty sure I said that wrong and I apologize. It is the Middle-ish of the park. Basically, it's just this huge garden with tons of cacti. You just there's just so many and it looks absolutely beautiful. You can go and see this any time of the day, but I've heard that it is in particularly amazing during the golden hour of the day, so that's like the hour right before sunset. And it's only like a quarter mile of a trail through the garden, so it's a really easy trail.
Speaker 2:Now, if you're into some nighttime activities, there's not a lot of light pollution around this park, so it's a really great place to see the stars and on a cloudless night you can see the Milky Way. And there's so many different campgrounds or various, you know, just pullouts in the park itself that you can just go find a little spot in the park and just stargaze for a little bit. There are some ranger-led programs, but you'll need to check the National Park website for you know updated ones. They don't seem to have like a lot of reoccurring ones. It seems to kind of be here and there, so I would check before you guys go if that's something that's interesting. And lastly, for nighttime stuff, there is a night sky festival which sounds really fun and it happens around the fall equinox. So definitely another option if that interests you.
Speaker 2:So, for one of the drive options that you can do, there is a road called Geology Tour Road. It is 18 miles. It's a back country drive, so think, like the first five miles are, you know, pretty standard and okay. But if you go past that you're gonna want some four-wheel drive because it's just not. There's a lot of potholes and things. So one of the cool things about this drive is you can actually get an interactive pamphlet from the visitor center and it talks about all the different stops that you can take along this road. So there's about 16 stopping points and you can use this pamphlet to just kind of learn more information about all the places that you're stopping, which I thought was really, really fun. And if you wanna do the whole road, it's about a two-hour drive, so just keep that in mind.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let's move on to hiking. I do wanna preface that some of these hikes are not recommended during the summer months, just due to the heat. So if you do go in the summer, I would just stick to the ones that are a mile or less. I would not do much more other than that, just cause dehydration is a really big thing in this park and with it being, you know, in the summer and all of that kind of stuff, it's just it's really hard to stay hydrated. So that is what I would recommend. So let's go ahead and get started.
Speaker 2:The Black Rock Canyon area this is on the very, very west side of the park. This hike is the Hike View Nature Trail. It is 1.3 miles, about an hour and a half hike, and is rated as a moderate. It has absolutely stunning, beautiful views of Yucca Valley, black Rock Canyon and this San Bernino Mountains. Now, in the Hidden Valley area, this is like the West entrance, you know Middle-ish park that I was talking about earlier. This is going to be the most popular part of the park, so I would recommend doing these ones earlier Now, like just earlier in the day.
Speaker 2:The first one is the Cap Rock Trail. This is about 0.4, 0.5 miles, so not long, really easy, and about a 20 minute hike. You see a lot of boulder formations on this one and the reason why it's called Cap Rock is because there's a boulder that looks like a hat, like a cap, so that's where it gets to name. The next one is the Discovery Trail. This is about 0.8 miles, also an easy hike 20, 30 minutes, not a lot of time here. This is the one that includes the famous Skull Rock and the Skull Rock's actually at the front of the trail. But you can do the Skull Rock Trail, which is about 1.7 miles, about an hour and a half. It's really easy. So you got options there. You can add that on and if you do that it'll take you past the Jumbo Rocks Campground. So really nice option there as well.
Speaker 2:This one is one that I'm going to try to convince Andrew to do because we are going in a cooler month. It's Ryan Mountain. This is a three mile hike, 2.5 hours and a very strenuous hike. It has about a thousand feet in elevation change and on this hike you ascend to the summit of Ryan Mountain and you basically get views of the valley from this like birds eye view, and I just think it looks really, really cool and would be fun to See it from the top. So so definitely am excited about that one. And the last one in this little area is the Lost Horse Mine Trail. This is about four miles, it takes two to three hours, is pretty moderate, and it climbs up the Lost Horse Mountain and basically below is this gold mine ruin and this is from like the Gold Rush area, that Gold Rush era that we talked about earlier in the history section, and so this one seems really cool because you just get to see this like old gold mine that used to be there. So I think that one would be really fun as well.
Speaker 2:Now for the north area of the park, there is a hike called the 49 Palms Oasis. This is about a three mile hike, two to three hours in time. I'm Pretty moderate. The trail can be kind of steep in some areas, but it's a really secluded area, so you can see a lot of wildlife here as well. Now, if you're interested in going to the cottonwood area, which is that south side that was Really not very, not very popular part of the park, there's a few options for hiking there as well. So it's the mastodon peak loop. It is about a three mile hike, takes around two hours and is a moderate. This trail passes through the Winnell Mill, which then it goes on to views of the cottonwood mountains and you can also see the mastodon mine Remains from the summit. So a really cool option. You got to see a lot of things on this one as well.
Speaker 2:And the second option in this cottonwood area is the lost Palms Oasis trail. This is about seven point two miles, five to six hours, pretty strenuous, but it is a very rewarding hike. The trail goes to a canyon and you can view wildlife like bighorn sheep and things like that from there. And if you're a fan of the fan palms, they these are really rare. Actually they're about 75 feet tall and they can live anywhere between 80 and 90 years, and there's only 158 in total in North America and so five of them are in Joshua Tree National Park. So this is this is a trail you want to take to see those. So they look really cool, and I honestly had no idea that they were that rare until I was doing the research for this episode, so I was like, wow, that's, that's really cool.
Speaker 2:So a few other options if you are looking for other things to do in this National Park besides just hiking. You can be Biking or rock climbing. So for biking options, you can either do it on Park Boulevard, which is about 25 miles, or the Pinto Basin Road, which is about 30 miles. You can rent bikes from the Joshua Tree bicycle shop, which is just right outside the West entrance, so really easy option there. For rock climbing, this park is constantly updating the access for rock climbers. Just they want to preserve the park as best as they can and so they kind of change where you can rock climb and things like that. So I would recommend for you to check the National Park website before your trip and just kind of see what kind of updates they have, just in case they changed anything. There are permits that are required for some locations in the park. So again I would just check the website to see kind of what they decided needed a permit or not. If you do want to do a climbing guided tour, there is a few options. You can do that either through the Joshua Tree climbing school, the cliffhanger guides or the vertical adventure. All three of those have been established with the National Park and are allowed to give tour guides and stuff for tour trips.
Speaker 2:So lastly, the places to stay. So inside this park there's not going to be any lodges or cabins or anything like that, but there are several campgrounds and over 500 camp sites. So if camping is your thing, you definitely got a lot going on here. Lots of options, lots of places and, you know, depending on the time of year, you might be able to spread out a little bit and not be, you know, right up against people, which would be really fun as well. You can make reservations for the campgrounds six months up to advance and advance, and most of them are anywhere between $15 to $30 per night, so very, very affordable option.
Speaker 2:If camping is not your thing, you can go outside the park, and the towns that I would recommend staying in would be Joshua Tree or the 29 Palms. Joshua Tree is right by that West entrance and 29 Palms is by the North. I believe that Andrew and I's Airbnb is in 29 Palms area. I'm pretty sure that's right, but anyway, both are good options. Both have, you know, a small town kind of feel and looks really good. So there's several options there, and that is all I have for you guys about Joshua Tree. I am so excited to get season two started and I will catch you guys next week. Please like and leave a review if you enjoyed this episode, and I will see y'all next week.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned something new about America's National Parks. If you enjoyed my show, please consider leaving a review. I would really appreciate it. I hope you have a great rest of your day and I'll catch you next time.