Los Angeles To Joshua Tree National Park
They may look soft, but don’t let it fool you. Hiking: If you love to hike, try one of these nature walks and hiking trails for every level of ability. Book your car with Discover Cars now!
Joshua Tree National Park

Seuss drawing or a Tim Burton film. It’s an excellent place to hike, climb rocks, take photographs, or discover Los Angeles To Joshua Tree National Park many stars there are in the sky. It occasionally snows at higher elevations. If you want to try to see wildflowers at Joshua Tree, the spring bloom depends on rainfall and temperature.
In general, you’ll find things blooming between February and April, but flowers can linger in the higher elevations through June. Spring is also the time to see migrating birds who join the ones who live here year-round, such as perky cactus wrens, roadrunners, and adorable Gambel’s quail. The visitor center has a checklist of species you might see during your visit.
If you go in the fall, the Night Sky Festival happens in September. If you take the minimum time to drive that about 1. Instead, take time to explore the stops listed below, which will take at least half a day. And that’s going one way. Be sure your vehicle has plenty of fuel and take food and water: You won’t find those things in the park.
You can drive in either direction, but if you’re on a day trip from Palm Springs, start at the Cottonwood Visitor Center. Cell phone service in the park is spotty at best, especially in remote areas. Instead of relying on GPS for navigation, go old school and pick up a map at the entrance. These are the major stops, from south to north: Entering Joshua Tree from the south, you will be in the low Colorado Desert, which has spots as much as feet below sea level.
This flat, hot landscape is known for its cactus gardens. It’s also the area where the desert flowers bloom in spring but don’t count on that happening every year. Cottonwood Spring is near the Visitor Center. A short walk from the parking lot leads to a desert oasis and a bubbling spring. You can find water in places like this because of earthquake faults beneath the desert surface. They force water upward to create cool, Glacier National Park To Great Falls Mt areas where the California fan palms grow.
If you’ve got time and energy for a 7. Check with park rangers before setting out on this trek. Ocotillo Patch: The ocotillo plant pronounced oh-cat-tee-yo Los Angeles To Joshua Tree National Park quite forbidding and dead in December.
In spring it sprouts small, oval-shaped leaves and eye-popping red flowers emerge from the end of every branch. In the surrounding landscape, you may also see scraggly-looking creosote bushes and paloverde, a bush-like plant with green bark. But don’t. The furry-looking chollas go by the nickname “teddy bear” because of their fuzzy appearance.
They may look soft, but don’t let it fool you. That’s why its other nickname is jumping cholla. If you manage to get those spines stuck in your skin, you may end up calling it by a few names that aren’t fit to print.
You will also see pencil cholla. Long spines emerging from diamond-shaped plates cover them. As bad as those long, sword-like stickers look, the worst part of the pencil cholla is at the base. The tiny spines there are Glacier National Park To Great Falls Mt small that you can barely see them, making them even harder to remove from your skin than the big, barbed ones.
Use it to learn how the cactus grow, why their stems are black, and about the animals who manage to make their homes in this seemingly inhospitable place. After you leave the Cholla Garden,…
Plan Your Joshua Tree Visit

Cottonwood Spring is near the Visitor Center. Vegetation is no longer allowed as an anchor! You can also hike the longer loop trail, which is close to 7 miles.