In mid-April, when the desert was in bloom, Chad and I made the 100 mile journey east to Joshua Tree National Park. With the windows rolled down and U2's iconic The Joshua Tree on the CD player, we set out to rewrite our relationship with the high desert and its most intriguing residents.
I pulled over at the first Joshua tree I saw. The tree is as spiny and unforgiving as it appears but when you stand out there next to it you can't help but feel compassionate. Each tree's very existance is something like a miracle. According to the park literature: The Joshua tree’s life cycle begins with the rare germination of a seed, its survival dependent upon well-timed rains. Young sprouts may grow several inches in the first five years, then slow down, averaging one-half inch per year thereafter. The tallest Joshua tree in the park looms a whopping forty feet high, a grand presence in the Queen Valley forest; it is estimated to be about 300 years old! I'd estimate this tree is about 30 feet tall!
After a few laughable attempts at posing like Bono next to a Joshua tree, we went on a long hike through the park collecting pictures of interesting Joshuas.
As you can see, Joshua Tree has almost as many weird rock formations as trees. Most of the rocks look precariously balanced, but we climbed on many without incident and saw plenty of real rock climbers testing them too.
If you look closely at that last photo, you'll see hieroglyphics carved into the rocks. Chad and I were so excited to see these ancient Native American symbols but when we looked close, we found we had several questions. For example, did the ancient Americans play basketball?
The park had a few other surprises for us as well. These bushes grew everywhere and after seeing them for awhile, we saw a sign posted near one. The sign told us to smell the plant. It smells like cheese and is in fact called the cheesebush!
A long time ago, a cattle rancher built a dam on the land now known as Joshua Tree National Park. We were excited to see this "watering hole" because the brochure said we might see animals drinking here. No animals, unless flies count. It looks pretty in my picture, but it stunk like rotten fish and muck. The creek that feeds this little watering hole was low so what was supposed to be the most scenic part of the park was really quite unpleasant.
This is the view from the top of the dam and the next picture is looking down to the left. The weird donut-shaped thing is an old watering trough.
Joshua trees grow in the Mojave desert but Joshua Tree National Park is located where the Mojave desert meets the Colorado desert. I know that doesn't sound very interesting, but it is! As we were driving, we suddenly realized there were no more Joshua trees. We had crossed some invisible line where they wouldn't grow anymore. Instead, we started to see very different, very colorful plants. My favorite plant was the ocotillo. It's not a cactus, but a thorny tree. It is brown but covered in what look like four leaf clovers, inch long spines, and sap. The red flowers are very delicate and grow at the tops of each "branch."
The other plant I liked was the cholla cactus. Most of the plants we saw were blooming, including the Joshua trees. Their blooms were white and waxy looking. Some cacti had red or yellow blooms but these chollas had a beautiful lime green bloom. We stopped at what was described as a "garden" of chollas to get a closer look.
This is the sign at the entrance to the cholla gardens. It reads: Warning! This cactus is hazardous. Do not touch for your safety and the protection of the resource. Travel is restricted to the trail. No pets. I then realized these chollas were what we called "jumping cactus" in Arizona. They look all soft and harmless, but they aren't. Their spines are so thin and clear they seem invisible... but they have hundreds and hundreds of hard, barbed thorns that grip your skin. Even lightly brushing against one of these chollas would really spoil your day.
As you can see, they are everywhere! The black portions of the chollas seem dead -- but they are evil little pods. They blow off the chollas and grow new plants wherever they land. These pods were everywhere, all over the trails. It was like walking through a minefield. I had already made the mistake of touching a cactus and pulling a dozen spines out of my fingers that day and didn't need any cholla incidents. So we bid our farewells and headed back to the cholla-free sidewalks of Riverside.
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