Joshua Tree National Park

Last week Monday, I visited Joshua Tree National Park, located just outside the small city of La Quinta where I was spending the holidays with my family. Joshua Tree isn't the most awe-inspiring national park, but it is not without a quirky, arid charm owing to its strange trees, giant rocks, and mile-high elevations. With just a splash more color, its landscape would be straight out of a Dr. Seuss book.

I entered the park from the southeast, speeding through the flat, sweeping Pinto Basin, which makes up most of the eastern half of the park. There wasn't much to see until the road began to climb, out of the empty basin past gardens of spindly ocotillos and fuzzy chollas.

Rising from the barren Colorado into the visually more interesting Mojave desert, the landscape becomes strewn with humongous granite boulders and forests of the eponymous Joshua Trees. The trees were named by Mormon pioneers who thought their uplifted arms resembled the biblical prophet Joshua.

I hiked a few short nature trails, including one past aptly-named Skull Rock, then took in a grand view of the entire Coachella Valley from Keys Point. Mount Jacinto towers at just under 11,000 feet in the background. About halfway between Keys Point and the Mount Jacinto, the San Andreas Fault reaching deep into the earth's crust is visible as a jagged crack at the surface.

Following a packed lunch, I did the steep 3-mile hike to the top of Mount Ryan and back. The trail requires a lot of huffing and puffing but offers views of the strange rockfields from above. Before leaving by way of the west gate, I hiked the loop trail past Barker Dam, where ranchers used to water their thirsty cattle.