Joshua Tree National Park: Park Boulevard

The Joshua Tree Visitor Center in the town of Joshua Tree is the western start of this drive across the park on Park Boulevard. It sells entrance passes for cash or card and has flush toilets, a bookstore and a cafe.…

For travelers finishing westbound, the drive ends at the Joshua Tree Visitor Center in downtown Joshua Tree, just short of the Highway 62 light. The gravel lot sits south of the building, with gas and food close by, t…

A Pasadena socialite, worn down by loss, turns to the desert just as cactus thieves begin stripping it. Minerva Hamilton Hoyt's campaign carries her to a governor, a cabinet secretary and a president, and the fight fo…

Homes and driveways line the last stretch of road outside the West Entrance, the busiest gate in the park. This stop explains why the fee station moved about half a mile inside the boundary, and what staff used to do…

The low-walled park sign at the West Entrance comes from a 1962 design, and the small lot beside it holds restrooms and a water bottle station, the last water on this road for about 29 miles. The fee station stands ju…

In 1906 Death Valley Scotty needs a mine to show his New York investors, and a young man named Bill Keys agrees to lend him one. What's planned as a show goes wrong fast. Keys turns up again and again on this road.

Joshua trees are giant yuccas, and every fork records a bloom or a dead tip. This drive-by stop covers how staff tried to measure trees that have no rings, the thin evidence behind the famous name, and the odd things…

Quail Springs is the first picnic area inside the West Entrance, with 9 tables and 7 grills set among Joshua trees and large rocks, and 34 parking spaces. There are pit toilets and no running water. The stop is about…

A Swedish miner named John Samuelson carves what he believes into desert boulders, spelling and all, and spins tall tales for a famous writer. Then he loses his homestead, and the road from there runs somewhere nobody…

Hidden Valley and Barker Dam are the two classic short walks on Park Boulevard, each about an hour. The Hidden Valley trail is a 1-mile loop with stairs and rock steps at both ends, and the Barker Dam trail is a 1.1-m…

Keys View Road leaves Park Boulevard near Cap Rock and climbs between five and six miles to the highest overlook in the park. The side trip is a dead end, about twenty minutes each way, and with time at the top it tak…

A young musician who loved this country, a promise a friend says he made, and a strange night out near Cap Rock. The tale is retold by everyone but the park itself, and people still argue over what was said and where…

Ryan Mountain wears its oldest rock on top, a dark cap of gneiss over younger pale granite, and its strenuous 3-mile trail climbs 1,050 feet. This stop also explains why Park Boulevard winds the way it does. The lot h…

Bill Keys finds a new neighbor settled across the short road to his mine. A feud over a road turns into a story of signs and suspicion, a courtroom and a prison, and a pardon that doesn't clear him. Much of it rests o…

Frances Lawton marries a desert homesteader in 1918 and bears seven children, and only four live to grow up. While her husband is in San Quentin she works to keep the family together. This is her tale, not his, and it…

Skull Rock is a granite boulder beside Park Boulevard, just east of Jumbo Rocks Campground, with two hollows that give it the look of a skull. Parking is along the road, so visitors pull fully off the pavement and use…

The great boulder piles along Park Boulevard weren't stacked by anyone. This stop follows the rock from deep underground through cracking, rounding and flash floods, then looks at what has vanished from these valleys,…

Pinto Wye is the one place on this drive where a wrong branch costs real time, a true Y where Pinto Basin Road heads about 30 miles south. Down that road lies the Cholla Cactus Garden, a flat quarter-mile loop that a…

A miner prospecting on his day off finds a rich vein in Queen Valley, and some hard men take an interest. The story of the Desert Queen Mine turns on a small unpaid debt, and it's been told more than one way.

Between the rock piles and Twentynine Palms, the road crosses the bottom edge of the Joshua tree's range. This stop introduces creosote, a relative newcomer with a cousin in Argentina, and covers flash floods under bl…

The North Entrance is a small fee booth where Utah Trail becomes Park Boulevard, and it takes cards only. Just north of it, Sky's the Limit offers an observatory, a nature trail and a vault toilet, under the dark skie…

In 1925 Elizabeth Crozer Campbell pitches a tent at the Oasis of Mara, hoping dry air will save a husband hurt by gas in the war. What she picks up while gathering firewood changes her life, and the tale doesn't skip…

The Oasis of Mara is the palm oasis at park headquarters in Twentynine Palms, reached from a trailhead lot off Utah Trail that has running water and restrooms. A half-mile paved loop, wheelchair accessible and strolle…

In about a quarter mile, at the Highway sixty-two light, turn left, west.

In about a quarter mile, at the Utah Trail light, turn right, south, toward the park.

For travelers finishing eastbound, the drive ends at the Joshua Tree National Park Visitor Center on Freedom Way in Twentynine Palms. The center has flush toilets, a water bottle filling station, a bookstore and EV ch…

The Joshua Tree National Park Visitor Center in Twentynine Palms is the eastern start of the Park Boulevard drive. It sells entrance passes for cash or card and has a water bottle filling station, and it sits close to…

Johnny Lang comes into this country with his father's cattle and buys a gold claim for a thousand dollars. A detective and a hard bargain change everything, and the last anyone hears from him is a few words on a cabin…

Keys View is an optional side trip, the overlook at the end of Keys View Road, 5,185 feet up, where the ground drops nearly a mile into the Coachella Valley. A short, steep paved loop leads up from the lot, Lower Keys…

Follow the loop around and take the same road back down. At the bottom, turn right for Skull Rock and Twentynine Palms, or left for Hidden Valley and the town of Joshua Tree. The tour picks up on its own.

The drive back down Keys View Road runs through the park's third ecosystem, where California juniper, oak and pinyon pine grow alongside Joshua trees above 4,000 feet. This stop looks at what toppled trees shelter, th…