JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK

     What is a Joshua Tree you may ask?  Well... it is sort of like a yucca plant on steroids.  They are giant branching yuccas (Yucca brevifolia) that got their name from early Mormon settlers.   The tree's unique shape reminded them of a Biblical story in which Joshua reaches his hands up to the sky in prayer.

     Our first concern about camping in Joshua Tree in early March was that the Winter daytime temps average around 60 degrees, but the nights could go down to freezing.  We had been monitoring the weather there at two of the RV campgrounds in the park where we were considering staying.  We decided on the Cottonwood campground near the Southern entrance to the park which showed warmer temps than the Black Rock campground near the West entrance.  We are happy to say that we didn't experience any freezing temps during our stay.  

     The Cottonwood campground consisted of two loops with a total of 62 sites.  The loop roads were a little narrow, especially when an RV had its drivers side slide out in the open position at one of the "pull over" sites.  There were also a few "back in" sites for RV's as well.  There are no hookups for RV's, but Black Rock and Cottonwood have fresh-water fill-up and dump stations.  There is a restroom with flush toilets at each loop.  We were lucky that we arrived early that Saturday, because the campground was filled by the end of the day.

     We spent all day Sunday touring the park.   We drove from the  Cottonwood Visitor Center, North on Pinto Basin Road, up to the Oasis Visitor Center where we checked out the exhibits and walked over to the Oasis of Mara.  We then drove West on Hwy 62 over to the Joshua Tree Visitor Center and re-entered the park heading South East on Park Blvd.  We stopped at Hidden Valley to hike the trail and watched some climbers scale the cliffs.  After that we drove to Keys View (5185') and got a nice view of the Coachella Valley farmlands, the Salton Sea and the Sonoran Desert mountains in Mexico. Across the valley we could see Mount Jacinto (10,804') towering above Palm Springs.  We also hiked the Arch Rock Nature Trail, the Skull Rock Trail and the Cottonwood Springs Trail.

     At the end of the long day, one thing that we agreed upon was that the giant boulders throughout the park, referred to as Jumbo Rocks, were just as cool as the Joshua Trees.  Our first stop in California turned out to be much more exciting than we had expected!

FP & RG

PS: To view additional photos of our adventures please follow the link to Frank's facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/frank.posillico.351