Joshua Tree National Park

Thanksgiving, 22nd-26th, November, 2006



The plane graveyard near the town of Mojave	Windmills at Tehachapi	The Palm Springs aerial tramway to Mt. San Jacinto rotates 360 degrees


Sunset from the top of Mount San Jacinto


Sunrise seen through the strangely beautiful Joshua Tree silhouettes	Near Ryan Mountain


Key's View allows you to see back into Joshua Tree and to the two highest peaks nearby, San Jacinto, to the West and San Gorgonio to the North...	...and towards the Coachella Valley over the Indio hills and Little San Bernadino Mountains. The aerial tramway goes from bottom to top of Mt. San Jacinto in the photo	Mt. San Gorgonio


Yuccas are sharp. Beware.	Climbing above Key's View	Unmistakeable Joshua Trees


White Tank campground has a maze of boulders to scramble on.


A young barrel cactus with characteristic pink spines		Young joshua 'leaves'


	Split Rock	The Cat's Claw bush - also known as the "wait-a-minute" bush. It catches on anything.


	Sunset at Ryan campground


Headstone rock at Ryan campground is popular for climbing	Sunrise from the climb up Ryan Mountain





The Wonderland of Rocks seen from above makes an unearthly sight	Teddybear cholla glow in the morning sun	In fact, everything in Joshua is sharp


Joshua Tree's friendly looking rocks are bigger than they seem	The Live Oak at Live Oak. Peaceful


The impossible Breadloaf Rock


Joshua Tree is all about climbing	Ocotillo cactii	Hiking in Joshua Tree is for the hardy


Palm fronds at Cottonwood Springs


		Palm Springs has an unbelievable number of windmills

The trip:

For Thanksgiving we forwent our turkey and headed down to Joshua Tree National Park, East of L.A. Our first day we took the Palm Springs cable car 10,000ft to the top of Mt. San Jacinto. We were rewarded with a beautiful sunset and the city lights far below. That night we camped at Black Rock campground.

We headed to Key's View for dawn to see the sunrise over yesterday's Mt. San Jacinto and Mt. San Gorgonio further North. Campsites were packed but we finally shared a spot with some visitors from L.A. Joshua Tree's rocks are fantastic and our White Tank campground has you camped right amongst them. We toured the Wonderland of Rocks around Barker's Dam, finding some good scrambling, and caught sunset at Ryan campground.

Sunrise was even more beautiful alone on the top of Ryan Mountain the next morning. We explored other rocky Joshua Tree stops including Live Oak and Split Rock before finding the unbelievable, and aptly named, Breadloaf Rock.

Our journey home took us through the Mojave desert end of the park and the oasis at Cottonwood spring. We grabbed a date shake at Palm Springs before driving through the windmills and back (with a night near Bakersfield) to San Francisco.