Joshua Tree National park is one of the many famous parks in the southwest that is a magnet to climbers and desert hikers from all around the southwest and the united states.

There is a vast amount of land that is sectioned off within the boundaries of Joshua Tree where people can find some fantastic hiking through liken boulders, beautiful Joshua trees, and beautiful desert terrain.

Climbers can find hundreds of routes for Bouldering, Trad, TR, and sport climbing of all types and ratings.

When we got to the park we headed over to the hidden valley area to find a route that I could rig for a Tope Rope so Heather can get some climbing practice in place.

There are numerous sections with massive boulders called Gneiss, which is metamorphic rock that transformed from pressure and heat which created these smooth looking boulder features.

More info on the rock geology here: https://www.nps.gov/jotr/learn/nature/geologicformations.htm

We found a route that had some crack climbs and a few 5.6 5.8 routes so I set up an anchor and we climbed around on this rock for about half of the day.

Afterwards we headed over to 49 palms which is a 3-4hr hike to a oasis in a canyon. This hike only took us around 1:45 minutes to complete but it was quite beautiful.  The massive palm trees clustered together gave a nice shade to the sun it felt like we were on a desert island.

There are other oasis patches of palm trees like this one and I am looking forward to visiting those in the future as this was really interesting to see.

Afterwards, we headed out and had to go south since we were headed to the LA area.  We found a section of BLM land where we were able to camp at for the night and found that it is quite the popular place since other people found this strip of land camp worthy.

The BLM land is located just north of route 10, outside of the park

The sunsets were fantastic and the climbing was pretty nice yet climbing is not the kind of sport that I identity with, yet it is fun to get out once in a while and climb.

I am looking forward to coming back here soon to enjoy the winter season conditions and the beautiful sunsets.