Joshua Tree National Park, CA

by Mary Helen Ponce

They come from all over the world—England, France, Holland, and also from nearby U.S. towns—to see and experience the spot immortalized by U2, the Irish rock group, in its 1987 Grammy Award-winning Album of the Year, The Joshua Tree.

The place with the international calling card is Joshua Tree National Park, a desert dominated by giant trees and rock formations located in California where the Colorado and Mojave Deserts meet, near the town of Joshua Tree (pop. 3,898).

Mormon legend says that early settlers called the Joshua tree “the praying plant,” and thought its gnarled branches suggested the Old Testament prophet Joshua pointing the way to the Promised Land. To some modern-day visitors, the park represents that very thing.

Joshua Tree National Park is a magical place where, in addition to massive Joshua tree forests, some of the most interesting geologic displays in California’s deserts are found. Five fan-palm oases pepper the park, indicating those few areas where water occurs naturally and wildlife proliferates. Standing like islands in a bleak and barren sea of sand, the oases provide dramatic contrast to their parched surroundings.

What is today the park was once a ranch owned successively by Francis Keyes, who settled the area in 1909, and his descendent, Willis Keyes. The land was proclaimed a National Monument in 1936 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1994, the California Desert Protection Act added 234,000 acres to Joshua Tree National Monument and promoted it to national park status.

This oasis in the desert is a magnet for folks from different walks of life because its isolation, bleakness, and vividly unusual trees and rock formations lend it a magical and mystical air. For Karen Jo Torjesen, chair of the School of Religious Studies at Claremont (Calif.) College, this magic is created by a kind of solitude not found in either the forest or ocean.

“Members of the early Christian monastery movement looked to the desert for the spirituality and solitude necessary to establish religious communities,” Torjesen points out. “The magic of the desert surrounding Joshua Tree is a mystery, which cannot be explained, only experienced.”

Christopher Stevenson knows well the magic of the desert. As director of the Desert Institute, located within the Joshua Tree National Park, he oversees an educational center that sponsors Poetry in the Park, a series of workshops that “immerse writers in the spirit of place.” Stevenson credits the landscape for the mystifying desert-inspired engagement of the spirit that occurs.

Still, not everyone comes to Joshua Tree seeking a spiritual high. Peggy Weitz, a secretary from a nearby school, comes to the park for its healing isolation. “I like to get away, to be by myself, to reflect on nature and its beauty,” she admits. “When I leave, I feel refreshed.”

Other tourists come to explore the wonders of the desert ecosystem. Mary Haggerty and Bill Tomlin made the long trip from the Goleta/Santa Barbara area of California, driving more than 300 miles for their first visit to the park. Avid naturalists and hikers loaded down with an array of cameras, the two are here to enjoy and photograph the flora: buckwheat, ocotillo, yucca, and desert flowers. “It’s amazing what grows in the desert,” says an enthusiastic Haggerty.

Beside the park’s magic, flora and fauna, geological formations, and massive trees, the Joshua Tree area has been the focus of archeological investigations for more than 60 years. Some discovered artifacts are thought to be associated with a tradition of big-game hunting that may date back to 9000 B.C.

The oddly shaped, massive trees and extraordinary rock formations that reach to the sky impact the senses in many ways. Atop a tall rock, a tanned Josh Burns, formerly of Richmond, Va., strums a guitar. He comes here for inspiration, as have so many poets and artists before him.

Mary Helen Ponce is a freelance writer from Sunland, Calif.

first appeared: 9/2/2001