An entire National Park named after a tree?  Seriously?

Now the Grand Canyon… that’s some park.  Gigantic crevice in the planet… that you can climb down into.  Cool.

Yosemite.  Epic walls of towering rock surrounding a pristine valley.  Yessir.

Yellowstone.  Bears, wolves, elk around every corner.  That’s surely worth a visit.

But Joshua Tree?  Just a few hours west of San Diego, California, and yeah… it’s named after some trees.

I had a glorious day there recently (and at the nearby mysterious Salton Sea) and it was extraordinary.  Joshua Tree delights in its subtlety.  In its understated charm.  The hikes scale a low lying and approachable mountain, forge through easily missed hidden valleys, ascend toward a seemingly misplaced dessert lake, and leave you utterly and beautifully alone in the silence.  It was breathtaking.

More to come soon…