It was about a 25 minute drive from the hotel to the entrance to the park.
Inside the park, we headed to the Mastodon Peak Loop Trail. It begins at an oasis. The trail was well marked, steep, and rocky at times.
When we reached Mastodon Peak, we had an amazing view of the area.
You can see a 360 degree view of the area below. Use your mouse to control the speed and level of detail in the 360 view.
We could see the mountains to the north and the Salton Sea to the south.
We saw an old mine entrance near the top of the mountain. On the way back down the mountain, the trail followed a river bed. We passed several interesting rock formations and a couple of other oases.
Here is an interesting camouflage picture.
Look closely to see a well camouflaged lizard crawling across the sand.
We also saw a large variety of flowers along the trail.
Our next stop was the Cholla Gardens. Chollas are sometimes compared to teddy bears. They can look soft, but the needles are very sharp. The cholla garden went about as far as we could see in every direction.
As we hiked the Arch Rock Trail, we noticed an unusual ring around the sun. We took a few photos of the ring. It was interesting that the ring showed up the day before an eclipse is happening.
Arch Rock Trail has several unique rock formations. Heart Rock was one of our favorites. Arch Rock formed an arch over another rock. The path to get to Arch Rock followed a very narrow path. Even in this rocky area, we still found flowers.
After Arch Rock, we headed to Split Rock Loop Trail. The trail begins by a very large split rock that forms a cave underneath it. The trail was narrow, rocky, and well marked.
We saw many interesting shapes in rocks that had been formed by erosion. One formation that we did not figure out was the lines that ran straight across some of the rocks in the area.
There were some unique rocks as well. We found one that looked a lot like a face. We also saw a very flat rock laying on top of a tall rock that formed a cliff. It is difficult to imagine how the hole got in the white rock. The trail did climb up in some spots so we got to see some long distance views as well.
We arrived at this trail late in the afternoon. Near the end of the hike, the shadows started to grow long. With the sun low in the sky, we saw some interesting lighting of the sky. The Joshua tree on the horizon looked eerie sitting on top of the rise. At one point the sun was shining directly at us through a hole in a cone shaped rock. There was also a rainbow as sunset neared.
We saw some interesting plants and a jack rabbit on the trail, too.
It was only a 20 minute drive back to the hotel. The sun began to set. The colors in the sky changed quickly and dramatically. It was a beautiful light display.
We had a great first day at Joshua Tree National Park.