I took a half day road trip from my new home base in San Diego to visit Joshua Tree National Park with one of my besties (Nix) visiting from Vancouver. The journey only took about 2,5 hours and as we were enroute to Desert Hot Springs for a girls spa trip we didn’t plan to do any proper hiking and just packed some light lunch into our backpacks in order to find a nice picnic spot with a view.

We entered the park at the (North) Western Entrance which is apparently the most popular entrance but we only had about 2 cars in front of us and the entry was quick and easy ($20 entry fee at the ranger gate). It’s worth noting that the northern part of Joshua Tree National Park varies quite a bit from the south. This is because two different deserts meet in Joshua Tree: the Mojave and the Colorado. In the northern Mojave Desert, you’ll find the park’s most popular hikes, massive rock formations, and of course, the famous Joshua Trees. The south is more barren as you enter the Colorado Desert, the landscape is much flatter, and Joshua trees are replaced with desert bushes and cacti.

The slow-growing Joshua tree (aka Yucca) , which graces much of the park’s desert ecosystem, is probably the most famous resident of the park. Named by Mormon settlers who crossed the Mojave Desert in the mid-1800s, the tree’s unusual shape reminded them of the Bible story in which Joshua reaches his hands up to the sky in prayer. Nix also thought some of them kinda looked like a sloth. Not sure Sloth Trees would have the same ring to it if we had named them 😉

We had plotted a short 1 mile loop trail called the Hidden Valley which is perhaps one of the most popular hikes in all of Joshua Tree, it is also very kid friendly as its relatively flat and not too strenuous. We actually ran into a school field trip group learning about the different rocks formations and flora. The Hidden Valley is almost entirely surrounded by rock formations except for the tiny opening that leads you to it. Legend has it that in the 1870s two brothers, Bill and Jim, formed the McHaney Gang out of a group of cowboys. The gang stole cattle in Arizona and herded them to this isolated valley where they could be rebranded before being sold in distant markets. Supposedly they did well for themselves until the area became more respectable at the end of the 19th century. (My Dad will LOVE that Cowboy story!)