Exploring Joshua Tree: Eureka Peak

We’d been working quite hard at getting the house unpacked and set up the last couple of weeks, so Saturday afternoon D decided that it was time to go do something fun. We stopped by one of the Joshua Tree National Park entrances to talk to one of the park rangers to get an idea of what all was available as well as pick up a park map. The park ranger that we talked to was extremely enthusiastic about the park and the activities there, so it was easy to get excited about exploring everything.

Because we were getting started later in the day, we knew that we didn’t want to head out on a long adventure. Eventually, we decided that we would head over to Eureka Peak.

D, never one to take the easy way, decided to do a little exploration on the way to the park entrance. We tend to take his off-road truck for this very reason as we never know when he’s going to decide that he wants to take a side road. 😉

When we finally arrived at the end of the road, we saw a beautiful view as well as a trail that lead up to the top of the peak.

Of course, we knew that we wanted to see the view from the top, so we grabbed our water and started up the trail.

The hike was definitely worth it.

The views were amazing, and we could see for miles.

At the top, I had to take a picture of Munchkin and Daddy standing next to a Joshua Tree.

Knowing that we wanted to check out a couple of other trailheads (for possible hiking in the future) on the way out, we made our way back down the trail. Heading back to the truck was much easier than our hike to the peak. lol!

There were lots of fallen Joshua Trees in the area of the park where we explored. We would find out at one of our next stops that many of them (not this particular one) we down due to one of two fires that had been in the area. We could still see the charred remains from the fires even though it had been many years since the last one. The fires were from natural causes – lightening strikes – but it’s still sad to see the scarred landscape. That being said, it is a normal park of nature that allows the land to later flourish. Learning about the fires wrapped up our day, and we made our way out of the park and headed home….