Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Joshua Tree NP

At the beginning of March, after my finals and before going to Asia for my Spring break, I visited Joshua Tree National Park.

When I visited the Everglades NP, I got the National Parks Pass, which means I do not have to pay fees in any NP for one year! Therefore, I gotta see as many of them as possible until next February!! :)

Joshua Tree NP is a nice day trip from LA. It is located around 3-3.5 hours driving from LA and it is a beautiful and interesting place. The park is located towards the South West of LA county and it is in the deserts. The park is very interesting to see desert plants and go for some climbing. Rocks there are huge boulders, really porous which are really easy to climb! That make it is quite a lot of fun to try some climbing or hiking among them!

Another highlight of the park is, of course, the huge amount of Joshua Trees that there are in here!! You do not know what a Joshua tree is? Just check the next photos!!




Some photos showing how big rocks are... and what they look like. They look like fractured mountains with funny shapes!




And some more Joshua Trees:



This is a view over Saint Andreas fault. The fault is next to the National Park and from it, the view is superb. The fault is the dark mountainous area in the middle of the photo.



Desert plants are really interesting and unique. I had a walk around a fascinating place: a garden of cactus. These cactus are quite especial, with their branches literally covered in spines. You do not want to touch those!!




The other interesting plant in the park is this kind of tree covered by small leaves... Pretty interesting!



It was March, so it also had some flowers!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi! I am back in Japan!
It is really nice part of U.S.
I am looking forward to seeing the photos in the Death Valley also!
With your new tent and camping stuff...!