When you walk out into the desert in Joshua Tree National Park you suddenly feel alone, isolated, and free. The starkness of the environment is deceptive, though. I didn’t exactly hike through the desert as I did wander, meander, stroll. For slowing down to a snail’s pace reveals colors, shapes, textures, light, and shadow; details not initially apparent.
The best times to visit Joshua Tree are just before sunrise (blue hour) and sunset (golden hour). Not only will you have the park to yourself (mostly), but you’ll witness the singularly beautiful transformation of a unique landscape from night to day and day to night. For photographers, the park is a dream come true. I spent a sunset and two early mornings there recently and was rewarded with the kind of images that only nature can truly gift us. As a bonus, we also got a photo opportunity of the human-made variety, too.
The high desert of Joshua Tree National Park is characterized by the presence of thousands of this unique and (to some) grotesque tree. According to legend, Mormon pioneers viewed the trees’ limbs as resembling the outstretched arms of Joshua leading them to the promised land. Others, like early explorer John Fremont, had the opposite reaction, “…the most repulsive tree in the vegetable Kingdom.”
Two deserts, the Colorado Desert and the Mojave, collide and overlap in Joshua Tree. The Colorado Desert (the western edge of the Sonoran Desert) covers the southern and eastern parts of the park and is home to ocotillo plants, ironwood trees, palo verde trees, and teddy bear cholla cactus. The Mojave Desert, occupying the western half of the park, is the primary habitat of the park’s namesake: the Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia). Having spent much of my life living in the tropics and now in the Pacific Northwest, a Joshua tree forest, an orderly patchwork of thousands of trees, is quite different from my traditional image of a forest; thick leaved deciduous trees and pillowy soft evergreens. Experiencing the unique meditative beauty of these trees, both up close and as they march into the distance, felt like meeting another species of Ent, the mythical walking, talking trees of J. R. R. Tolkien's Fangorn forest in Middle Earth.
The Mojave Desert, despite its extreme temperatures and conditions, is a fragile and ever-changing environment. Early morning light reveals a surprisingly rich color palette that soon morphs into the washed-out beige of boulder mountains that only moments before were shadow-splashed pillars of fiery red. If you look down at your feet, you’ll see tiny flowers, yellow, purple, and red, pushing up from the ground. And the cacti appear otherworldly as morning light filters through their needles, revealing previously unseen colors. Giant yucca flower stalks abruptly emerge from their stumpy bases.
And speaking of startled, the first evening in the park we were witness to an extensive plume racing across the darkening sky. After a weekend of rain and scrubbed launches, the latest SpaceX rocket finally shot into a perfect evening sky. Viewing it from the park, designated an International Dark Sky Park by the International Dark-Sky Association International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) made it all the more spectacular.
To learn more about visiting and supporting magical places like Joshua Tree National Park, please visit the park’s website.