One of the great landscapes of the American Southwest — Joshua Tree National Park, 50 miles east of Palm Springs, where the Mojave Desert (higher, cooler, home of the Joshua tree) and the Colorado Desert (lower, hotter, home of the ocotillo and cholla) collide, creating a landscape of enormous boulders, striking silhouetted trees, and night skies undimmed by light pollution that are among the finest in Southern California.
Why It’s Worth Your Time
Joshua Tree is the excursion that surprises first-time Palm Springs visitors — the half-day or full-day trip that converts casual visitors into people planning return trips. 800,000 acres at the junction of the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts, with the Joshua tree (a yucca, not a true tree, signature plant of the Mojave above 2,500 feet) providing the visual vocabulary. Skull Rock (weathered granite resembling a skull, on the main road) is the easiest hike. Ryan Mountain (5.5 miles round trip, 1,000-foot gain) provides the most complete geological panorama. Keys View (5,185 feet) overlooks the entire Coachella Valley with the Salton Sea visible 50 miles east. The 45-minute drive from Palm Springs passes through the wind turbine farm (California's largest concentration) and into Yucca Valley and Joshua Tree towns.
What Stands Out
- 800,000 acres at the Mojave-Sonoran Desert junction: the most dramatically varied desert landscape within an hour of Palm Springs
- Joshua trees (Mojave Yucca): found nowhere else on earth in this quantity — the visual vocabulary that makes the park irreplaceable
- Keys View overlook (5,185 feet): the Coachella Valley, the Salton Sea, and everything you hiked through in Palm Springs visible at once
- Night skies: Class 2 Bortle scale darkness, among the finest in Southern California — arrive for sunset, stay for stars
- Skull Rock hike (easiest, 1.7 miles): the most accessible single experience in the park, worth the 45-minute drive from Palm Springs