Joshua Tree National Park Again

Today we spent all day exploring a small but beautiful part of the Joshua Tree National Park. We drove up to the west entrance and entered from there. The first photo is from the 29 Palms entrance which is where we exited after our loop. We drove over 140 miles today.

This area brought us quickly to the center of the high Mojave Desert where the Joshua Tree is most abundant. These are part of the yucca family but are very tree like with wide spread shallow roots. They mostly grow at over 3000' in elevation so we dressed for cool weather today.
These photo's are in no particular order. This is in the area just a few miles inside the park. Looking to the west and north. We eventually went up to over 5100 feet where it was about 50 degrees with a high wind, it was very cold.
Cheryl and I hiked about a mile into Hidden Valley. This is an area that was once used to hide stolen cattle and horses while they were re branded. The trail in is steep and very difficult. It's hard to believe they actually got cattle in here. The valley is about 55 acres and is beautiful with steep walls all around it.
Besides the interesting vegetation the huge rock formations were spectacular. Some of them reminded us of scenes from old westerns and we wonder if we have seen this area in the movies. Many climbers come here to try their skill. We saw several climbing formations that are well known.
Trees and rock formations are everywhere. This is on the trail into Barker Dam, a hand built dam used to store rainwater for a nearby ranch. Several old ranches are in this area. They now are part of the park. Next trip we hope to tour one.
The trail into the dam was another mile or so hike. This was a much easier hike than into hidden valley.
I took dozens of pictures of rock formations like this one. The photos really don't do them justice.