On April 6, my family and I drove out to Joshua Tree National Park in Twenty Nine Palms, about 98 miles from Los Angeles and 2.5 hours from my house. Along the way, we stopped by a recently opened skatepark in La Quinta. My dad and I, who both skateboard, were so excited for the features that this park had! Here’s a video of me skateboarding:

Okay, now back to Joshua Tree. We planned to take some family friends around the park as we were all on our spring break. Joshua Tree was to be their first national park to ever visit and I was sure they would love it! After skating, we drove the remaining 40 minutes to the park. Almost immediately, we lost cell service, which can be expected for any national park. From then on, our form of communication with our friends became limited and we had to plan strategically according to the park map. Luckily, with so few cars passing through during the weekday, it was not a problem for our friends to simply follow behind our car!

The thing I love most about Joshua Tree is that you can make anywhere your playground. Find some cool cactus along the side of the road? Pull over and explore it! Find some cool rocks, get out of the car and climb them! While the touristy spots are indeed cool, my family and I enjoy skipping the crowds and adventure on the road less traveled.

We visited the Cholla Cactus Garden first after entering the park from the Colorado Desert side. Yes, many cars stop by here to view the very numerous Teddy Bear Cholla (Cylindropuntia bigelovii). One half of the road has a small paved path were people are safe from the spines of the cactus. The other half is an undisturbed garden of cactus. Going through can be dangerous and even painful at times. Avoiding the tourists, we decided on the less busy side.

My family and I have visited the garden before (also on the non-paved half) and were well aware of the dangers that doing so brings. When packing the first aid kit, the one most important thing I forgot were tweezers. I had left them right next to where I was packing up the stuff! Upon arriving, we quickly suffered the consequences. The spines are no joke. This time though, we were fully prepared.

The thing about cacti is that many reproduce asexually through propagation, that is splitting off a piece of itself and letting that piece to grow along side it. However, if pieces of the cactus stay in the same general spot, genetic diversity would be lacking in the whole mix. But what if there was a way for the next generation to somehow move around… perhaps spines would be useful? Yes, other than providing protection, cactus spines are also designed for animals walking past to pick up the piece and carry it somewhere else. Humans stepping on the released offspring are a wonderful mode of transportation too.

Despite looking cuddly and innocent as far as cacti go, the Teddy Bear Cholla is not to be messed with. The arms are able to detach when they become too heavy for the whole plant to bear. Pieces fall off and humans and other animals fall victim. If you don’t watch your step, mini cactus will eagerly pierce even hiking boots with their tough, determined spines. Pulling them out can be painful and tedious. My family and I were luckily not such victims (this time), but our friends were. Tweezers out and ready to save the day!

My dad and sister who contributed to cactus propagation last time we visited ;)

Other than pulling out cactus spines, we all explored the vast expanse of the garden. Many (if not most) of the individual cactus were probably clones of one another in some way. I marveled at the gorgeous flowers, which ultimately produce sterile seeds for animals like birds to snack on. I tracked the lifecycle of the flowers: starting as a bud tipped with yellow and pink, turning into a large green flower, shriveling up, and eventually falling off and leaving the stem yellow. It was all fascinating!

1) New buds
2) Green flowers
3) Shriveled flowers
4) Flowers fall off and stem turns yellow

After the cactus garden, we explored some very cool rock formations. My friends are quite the climbers and loved the benefit of being able to walk almost vertically on the rocks. Joshua Tree’s rocks look like giant mounds of stacked boulders.
How did such peculiar and fascinating towers form? Eons ago as magma miles under Earth’s surface cooled and solidified, various granitic rock types, namely monzogranite, formed. As geological forces stressed the rocks, cracks called joints formed between the granite. As the piles continued to uplift, groundwater eventually entered the joints and began to widen them and chemically weather the rocks to their more rounded forms. When surface soil eroded, the piles became exposed.
Today, curious rock climbers and hikers get to explore the nooks and crannies created by the eons of erosion. My friends and I explored caves and climbed over the coolest looking rocks. Each one had a story for how it had formed to the state seen today.

Joshua Tree National Park is known for the incredible stargazing. Since the nearest city is quite a distance away, light pollution isn’t a major issue. In the darkness of the night, it’s the moon that can be an inconvenience here. We luckily visited during a waxing crescent, so not too bad. I pointed out constellations such as Canis Major (and the star Sirius, the brightest star in the Milky Way), Ursa Major and Minor, Orion (and Betelgeuse), and Cassiopeia.

The next day, we had planned to hike the Minerva Hoyt Trail located in the Mojave Desert half of the park. When we got there, the landscape was completely flat and the nearest rock mounds were quite a distance away. Wanting more rocks to climb, we instead crossed the road to the other half of the landscape and walked to the nearest mound that was much closer than those on the other half. Once we got there, we began scaling the granite, weaving through caves and cracks in the rocks.

Returning from our rock climbing and getting ready to find a cool shady spot to eat lunch, I explored the desert surrounding the parking lot. There, I discovered a caterpillar species I had never seen before. Hundreds of caterpillars were banded up in sacks of silk, moving around and over each other and collecting their poop at the bottom of the sack. Communal caterpillar living, what?!
Once I had internet connection, I was able to use iNaturalist to help me identify the caterpillars as Southwestern Tent Caterpillar Moths (Malacosoma incurva), perhaps my new favorite moth species.
In its caterpillar/larval form of the moth, their bodies are decorated with the hues of blue, orange, and gray. Fuzzy hairs line the sides and tops of their bodies. Hundreds of individuals will gather together in tents that they construct to take shelter. Once the tents become too full of waste, the caterpillars will abandon it and create a new tent. I observed these tents constructed on Desert Almond (Prunus fasciculata), about 4-6 per plant, but the caterpillars will also live on cottonwoods, willows, and some fruit trees.
The adults are various shades of brown and are much less commonly seen throughout the park. To me, they look like little brown yetis.

Driving around, all the picnic tables we discovered were crowded, so we decided to lunch at a shaded rock formation at Ryan Mountain. Carrying up the food in backpacks, we eventually found a table-like rock that was perfect for setting our food down.
After a lunch of avocado on bread, carrots, and dried fruit, my friends and I started climbing up more rocks. Transversing from one side to another, we discovered an area that left behind cool signs of water erosion. One area was so smooth even our hiking boots couldn’t grip on without sliding! Concave pits called tafoni were present as well. Tafoni are pockets of rock carved out when the rock is exposed to moisture or water for extended periods of time.

As we explored more rocks, my dad called, altering me of a “huge lizard” as he put it. Rushing over, I immediately recognized the lizard as a Common Chuckwalla (Sauromalus ater). Chuckwallas are one of those lizards I’ve just been dying to see and I was so excited to finally get the chance to meet one! The lizard started at the bottom of a cliff, but eventually climbed up it to enter a small pocket for either shade or safety.
Common Chuckwallas are a desert dwelling iguana species ranging across much of the Southern U.S. and Northern Mexico. This enchanting lizard has a 10 inch long tail that accounts for about half their body length. Their diets predominantly consist of plants and the occasional insect which provide much of their water supply. Chuckwallas are diurnal and can be found soaking up sunlight as they are cold-blooded animals. In order to be most efficient, the chuckwalla will unfold the loose skin around their neck and abdomen in order to increase surface area. In the colder months of the year, chuckwallas go into brumation, a hibernation-like state utilized by many reptiles. Read more about brumation here. And just ’cause I think their so cool, you can learn more about chuckwallas here too!

After the chuckwalla encounter, my friends and I parted ways as we had to leave the park before traffic home to L.A. got bad. We all had a fantastic time at Joshua Tree, with all the wildlife we encountered and the rock climbing being a highlight for sure!