April in Joshua Tree - Joshua Tree National Park

Sunset, April, 2000 by Michael Tennesen

In springtime, this national park blooms with desert flowers and surprises

In Joshua Tree National Park in the Southern California desert, epiphanies abound. One day my friend Rufus, his son, and I were about 1 1/2 miles up the Boy Scout Trail, surrounded by 25-foot-tall Joshua trees--tall candelabra cactus with spiny caps atop grossly contorted branches. It was April, and creamy, podlike flowers topped those branches, beckoning birds and squirrels.

But even the Joshua trees weren't enough to entertain Rufus or 1-year-old Guthrie, whom Rufus carried on his back. As we hiked, Rufus's eyes closed into slits and his mouth curled downward. Guthrie started to whine. Then I pointed at a vista behind us. In unison, the eyes of both father and son widened and their mouths dropped open.

Rufus smiled and asked Guthrie, "How did they do that?"

What had aroused our fascination was a series of mountains looming behind the forest of Joshua trees. The closest of the peaks seemed to be composed of mammoth pink boulders, resembling bubbles popped from a subterranean bottle of champagne. Behind that spread another range of wrinkled but gentler hills. And beyond those rose the 11,499-foot snowcapped summit of San Gorgonio Mountain. On the desert floor all around us blossomed yellow desert dandelions and purple phacelias.

Woolly marigolds

There is no better time than April to catch the spectacle of rock and flower that is Joshua Tree National Park. When there have been sufficient winter rains, the park unfurls superb displays of annual wildflowers. The transformation can happen fast. I came here one year when a late winter storm had deposited a thin cover of snow. By midday the ground had turned from snow white to reddish brown. By afternoon it was already bright yellow, as fields of tiny woolly marigolds burst from freshly moistened earth. Even if winter has been dry and the annuals fail to appear, most cactus have blooms that are no less spectacular for being more reliable.

You can give yourself a good introduction to the park by taking the drive from the West Entrance Station. Follow Park Boulevard to Pinto Basin Road and out through the southern Cottonwood entrance to explore a varied and splendid landscape. Hiking trails and exhibits are available at almost every pullout. One particularly good introductory hike is the 11/2 -mile trail to the summit of Ryan Mountain. The trail begins in the Joshua trees and climbs up through pinons and patches of oak. Along the way you'll see bunch grasses, annual wildflowers, and prickly pear cactus, as well as rust-and lime-colored lichens adorning banded rocks flecked with fool's gold. At the top you get the best 360[degrees] view the park has to offer, and a good look at the pink piles of enormous granite boulders in Hidden Valley that rock climbers love to scale.

Brazen mice

Though Joshua Tree may look devoid of wildlife, even a short walk out in the desert will quickly reveal a myriad of freshly dug holes, where pocket mice, collared lizards, rabbits, or desert tortoises have burrowed. My favorite example is the second stop on the Cholla Cactus Garden Trail, an easy 1/4-mile loop accessible from Pinto Basin Road. The 1-foot-tall mound is covered with little balls of cholla whose spines are so aggressive that if you get one in your tennis shoe, you may have to throw away the shoe. How can a mouse make its home in such spiky surroundings? That's its secret.

The Cholla Cactus Garden is dazzling from any direction, but particularly backlit, when these Neapolitan-like cactus (they have lime green tops, rust-colored middles, and dark brown bases) dazzle with fire. A yellow flower grows where a yellow-green fruit will later appear.

Joshua Tree is composed of two distinct desert ecosystems--the higher-elevation Mojave and the lower-elevation Colorado. The Cholla Cactus Garden is at the transition zone between the two deserts, and park visitors often turn back here because the Joshua trees disappear in the lower park.

It's an easy mistake. But you'd do much better to continue on down Pinto Basin Road through the washes and past the smoke trees (their delicate branches look like smoke) to Cottonwood Spring and the Lost Palms Oasis Trail. Reaching Lost Palms Oasis requires a demanding, 3 3/4-mile hike (one-way)--but it's worth it. You'll traverse a series of high valleys, ravines, and washes filled with a variety of plants, including purple barrel cactus and stands of ocotillos. After a good rainfall, the long, slender branches of the ocotillo are covered with tiny green leaves and red blossoms.

Trail's end is a beautiful, deep, rocky canyon awash with California fan palms. Kit foxes and bighorn sheep make occasional secretive trips to water here. The oasis is another one of the how-did-they-do-thats that keep desert rats like me returning for more.

Joshua Tree travel planner

Joshua Tree National Park is 140 miles east of Los Angeles via Interstate 10, then State 62. Area code is 760 unless noted.

CONTACT: Oasis Visitor Center, 74485 National Park Dr., Twentynine Palms; 367-5500.