An otherworldly visit to the Joshua Tree National Park

After spending the weekend in Palm Springs for YxYY, I stuck around for an extra week to really explore the Palm Springs area. Usually when I go to Palm Springs, I rarely leave the hotel property. One of the adventures included a return visit to the Joshua Tree National Park.

I first visited the park 3 years ago before the inaugural YxYY with a bunch of new friends. This time, we had arranged for a private tour with a park ranger and it was quite the tour.

Thanks to an unfortunate nearby wildfire at Big Bear Lake, the sky was slowly getting smoky and made for an otherworldly tour of the park with an orange tint covering most of the sky. The timing of our visit and the wildfire meant we’d have some of the most unique photos of the park.

My photos were all taken with my iPhone 6 and haven’t been edited or filtered in any way…I didn’t think they needed to be as it was just such an amazing day to be in the park. I encourage you to click on a photo below to watch a much larger slideshow of the landscape:

a couple of grey squirrels go rock climbing

Everywhere we went on the park’s extensive road system was filled with jaw dropping views of the scenery.

You could easily spend a full day exploring and they even have campsites if you’d like to stay overnight for as little as $15 a night ($20 with water which you’ll want).

Disclosure: Tour was provided by Joshua Tree National Park and arranged by VisitPalmSprings.com