Weird and wonderful Joshua Tree
Hiking, good eats, quirky saloons and hot springs in California’s desert park
It’s a dry heat — a boulder-studded, wind-raked Mojave heat in which rock stars lie low, artists think big, Marines train, weird plants jut toward the sun like beseeching biblical figures, and climbers cling to granite walls like insects stuck to flypaper, except the climbers are way happier That’s a notable thing about Joshua Tree National Park and the towns around it. While legions of Californians
keep their faces toward the beach no matter the season, a certain stripe of traveller is powerless to resist the desert, especially in cooler months. They come for the wide-open spaces and quirky lodgings you see in Joshua Tree and Twentynine Palms. They come for the bands at Pappy & Harriet’s, for the steaming pools of lithium-rich water at Desert Hot Springs or for a sound bath (to be explained soon) at the Integratron in Landers.
Here are some micro-itineraries for Joshua Tree and environs, a sprawling area that begins north of Interstate 10 about 200 kilometres east of Los Angeles City Hall.
Big rocks, bigger sky
Joshua Tree National Park covers nearly 325,000 hectares. No matter when you go, you’ll enjoy it most in the day’s first and last hours of light, when the shadows get interesting and temperatures change quickly. The Mojave and Colorado deserts collide here, and a few billion rocks demand climbing or observation. There are almost as many cartoonish Joshua trees, which are better admired than climbed.
From the park’s west entrance (near the town of Joshua Tree), head to Hidden Valley, a haven for tent-camping, hiking, climbing and scrambling. There’s a 2.5-kilometre looping nature trail to Barker Dam that’s great for photography (still water, stacked boulders), and the neighbouring Gunsmoke area is beloved by boulderers. Not far from there is Cap Rock. Back in 1973, a few days after 26-year-old Gram Parsons died of a drug overdose in Room 8 of the Joshua Tree Inn, his friend Phil Kaufman stole the body from authorities and brought it to Cap Rock for a DIY cremation. It didn’t go well, and rangers continue to discourage this practice. For a healthier interaction with the landscape, try a class offered by the Desert Institute (www. joshuatree.org); its recent offerings have included geology and plein air poetry. Wherever you go, bring water.
Downtown Joshua Tree
Get your first meal at the Crossroads Cafe (61715 Twentynine Palms Highway, Joshua Tree), where postings on its bulletin board are liable to mention rock climbers’ chalk bags for sale, mercenaries for hire and upcoming drum circles. For a date shake, walk down to Ricochet (61705 Twentynine Palms Highway). For gear or a guide, stop at Joshua Tree Outfitters (61707 Twentynine Palms Highway). There’s also a pottery shop, a couple of thrift stores and the Joshua Tree Saloon (61835 Twentynine Palms Highway), which plays a key role during the Joshua Tree Music Festival in May and the Joshua Tree Roots Music Festival in October. Across the street, there’s the Instant Karma Yoga Studio, the Mount Fuji General Store (a hipster boutique) and a pizzeria called Pie for the People. If you like a lodging with a little style and don’t need a pool, head for the five-room Spin & Margie’s Desert Hide-a-way (64491 Twentynine Palms Highway). If you want higher style (and have more money), there’s the Mojave Sands Motel (62121 Twentynine Palms Highway), where owner Blake Simpson has turned a roadside hole-in-the-wall into a five-room compound with vintage vinyl and a manual typewriter in every room. Dozens of Joshua Tree properties are also listed on vacation-rental sites such as Vrbo. com, with a variety of prices.
The egg in the boulders
There’s a growing art scene in Joshua Tree, and not just within the walls of the Red Arrow Gallery and Joshua Tree Art Gallery on the main drag. Check out the artists of High Desert Test Sites (6470 Veteran’s Way), who make outdoor works that the desert will transform and reclaim. Like the galleries, the headquarters opens on weekends, and one work is always accessible. It’s along Twentynine Palms Highway, about a kilometre east of Park Drive, on the boulder-strewn slopes at the end of meandering, unpaved Neptune Road. Up close, you may see that “untitled,” by Sarah Vanderlip, is made of welded aluminum, but from a distance, it gleams like a silvery egg, possibly dropped by a titanium dinosaur.
Pappy & Harriet’s
Pioneertown, on a plateau about seven kilometres north of Yucca Valley, was built in the 1940s as a TV and movie set. Some decades later, along came Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace (53688 Pioneertown Road, Pioneertown), a roadhouse with live music that has become a desert institution. Pappy’s gently blends desert-rat locals with escaped city slickers and lures performers you would never expect in the middle of nowhere. The Pioneertown Motel is next door. If you’re OK to drive back to Joshua Tree, there’s the 10-room Joshua Tree Inn (61259 Twentynine Palms Highway), where you can have Room 8 (the Gram Parsons death room) for $109. It has a pool and a shrine to Parsons.
The Integratron
You’re either up for the Integratron (2477 Belfield Blvd., Landers), or you’re not. It’s about 20 minutes’ drive north of Joshua Tree, a white wooden dome, 14 metres high and 28 metres in diameter, built in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s by renegade aeronautical engineer George Van Tassel, who died in 1978. Van Tassel wanted to contact other worlds. In his absence, a trio of sisters has taken ownership, and the building has a new life as a place for meditating, playing music or climbing the ladder to the upper chamber, curling up on a blanket and listening for half an hour to someone coaxing eerie, powerfully resonant sounds from a series of quartz bowls. The sound, bouncing off the rounded walls and trembling through the Douglas fir floorboards, is mesmerizing. Karl estimates that a third of her customers are musicians.
Stony haven
In a territory dominated by stray boulders, why is it so surprising to find a house with stone walls? Maybe it’s because Roughley Manor (74744 Joe Davis Drive, Twentynine Palms), which dates to 1928, is three storeys high and surrounded by equally tall trees. This is a good spot for families, its 25 acres set apart from the rest of town; the grounds include a pool, grassy areas, two suites in the main house and five cottages. While the J-tree hoteliers court the young and trendy, Roughley Manor’s resident owners cater to scrapbooking groups. When your book is done, it’s a short drive to Smith’s Ranch Drive-in Movie Theater (4584 Adobe Road, Twentynine Palms), which screens movies Thursday-sunday nights.
Damp and shady at last
After you’ve zoomed down the hill from Joshua Tree but before you reach the windmill forest at the entrance to the Coachella Valley, you reach Big Morongo Canyon Preserve (11055 East Drive, Morongo Valley), where boardwalk trails trace paths past riparian brush and desert willows. More than 250 bird species have been recorded in the area. When you’re done, hop across the highway for grub at Willie Boy’s Saloon & Dance Hall (50048 Twentynine Palms Highway, Morongo Valley).
The pueblo and the spas
First, you’ll see the head — a 10-metre Indian head with a feather, carved from a Sequoia redwood log by artist Peter Toth in 1978. Then you’ll notice the rest of Cabot’s Pueblo Museum (67616 E. Desert View Ave., Desert Hot Springs), a four-level, 35-room mansion built in ersatz Hopi style by Cabot Yerxa, one of the pioneering eccentrics of Desert Hot Springs. To get a good look inside, sign up for the hourlong tour and learn how Yerxa built the home from recycled materials between 1941 and his death in 1965. Then it’s time for cocooning in a little spa hotel, of which there are several. The seven-room Sagewater Spa (built in 1954, redone in 2001) gives you Midcentury minimalism. El Morocco Inn & Spa (66810 4th St., Desert Hot Springs) is a 2005 revival project with 10 rooms, many veils, three round beds and sparkling Tripadvisor ratings for its service.
The six-room Hacienda Hot Springs Inn (12885 Eliseo Road, Desert Hot Springs) delivers an Old California feel, including an outdoor kitchen, enormous common table and plenty of books and desert memorabilia. None of these places is good for children or outdoor cellphone chats.
Soaked for a pittance
You’re done with the national park, your muscles are sore and your wallet is thin. And so, for just $7 on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday — or $5 on most weekdays — you can buy a day pass at the Desert Hot Springs Spa Hotel (10805 Palm Drive, Desert Hot Springs).
There, you meander among eight spring-fed pools, each a different temperature. (On Tuesdays, the price drops to $3.) The spa menu is long, and families are welcome. You can rent a poolside room for the day (9 a.m.-4 p.m.) for $45 or spend a night for a little more than $100. To go with your cheap soak, grab some hearty, affordable Mexican food a few blocks away at Casa Blanca Restaurant (66370 Pierson Blvd., Desert Hot Springs).