The Joshua Tree National Park

Well we had an interesting morning visiting the Joshua Tree National Park. We did however slightly misjudge the size of this park. A couple of hours here is like trying to see all of Yellowstone in a morning. It's apx 800,000 square acres of mountain desert. We went in from the east entrance as it is the closest to where we are staying. We also misjudged the elevation and so a balmy 68 degrees here in the valley quickly became a windy 52 degrees at the visitor center.
We did drive over and hike in to the Cottonwood Spring Oasis. That green tuft if palms in the distance is it. The elevation there was about 3000 feet. While in the photo it looks warm, it wasn't.The only cottonwood tree I saw was down this side canyon as we hiked up beyond the oasis.

We took the trail to the top of these steps. The trail actually led another 3 miles to Lost Palms Oasis but once we heard the recommended hiking time to there and back was 6 hours we decided to let this one go. We would normally schedule half that amount of time so we felt there was more to this hike than we knew.

So, what about the Joshua Trees? We were a long ways from the area they are in. In fact they are in the northwestern part of the park. We decided to try again on Friday and take the highway around to the western visitor center. The trees also grow at much higher elevations than we were at so we want to dress warmer for these hikes. This will be an all day adventure for us.