Hiking Joshua Tree National Park: 38 Day and Overnight Hikes (Regional Hiking Series) [Paperback]

Bill Cunningham (Author), Polly Cunningham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2007 | Series: Regional Hiking Series

"Hiking Joshua Tree National Park" provides detailed informaiton on thirty-eight of the best day hikes and extended backpacking trips in this desert wonderland 140 miles east of Los Angeles. The diverse landscape--shaped by strong winds, unpredictable precipitation, and coimatic extremes--offers numerous opportunities for year-round exploration. With rich narratives and beautiful photographs, this guidebook provide all you need for hiking the extensive network of trails mong granite rock formations, pinon and juniper forests, sandy washes, and the symbols of the park, the Joshua trees. .

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Hiking Joshua Tree National Park provides detailed information on thirty-eight of the best day hikes and extended backpacking trips in this desert wonderland 140 miles east of Los Angeles. The diverse landscape—shaped by strong winds, unpredictable precipitation, and climatic extremes—offers numerous opportunities for year-round exploration. With rich narratives and beautiful photographs, this guidebook provides all you need for hiking the extensive network of trails among granite rock formations, piñon and juniper forests, sandy washes, and the symbols of the park, the Joshua trees.

 

For more than twenty-five years, FalconGuides® have set the standard for

outdoor guidebooks. Written by top experts, each guide invites you to experience the adventure and beauty of the outdoors.

 

Look inside to find:

• Hikes suited to every ability

• Accurate directions to the trailhead and detailed trail descriptions

• GPS-compatible trail maps

• Mile-by-mile directional cues

• Difficulty ratings, average hiking times, and best hiking seasons

About the Author

Polly and Bill Cunningham are lifelong hikers and wilderness advocates. They have collaborated on several other FalconGuides, including Hiking New Mexico's Aldo Leopold Wilderness, Hiking New Mexico's Gila Wilderness, Hiking California's Desert Parks, Hiking Anza-Borrego State Park, Hiking Death Valley National Park, Hiking Mojave National Preserve, Wild Utah, and Wild Montana.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Falcon; 1st edition (October 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0762744642
• ISBN-13: 978-0762744640
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #219,348 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars High Adventure in the High Desert, October 21, 2007

By 

Fritz R. Ward "dayhiker" (Crestline, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hiking Joshua Tree National Park: 38 Day and Overnight Hikes (Regional Hiking Series) (Paperback)

Joshua Tree is the third most visited national park in California, right behind Yosemite and Death Valley. But don't let that fool you. On any given weekend, a significant portion of those visiting this park are testing their skills on various 5.5-5.9 climbs on the many boulders and cliffs that dot the landscape. If your interests involve the (somewhat) more horizontal sport of hiking, you can find lots of pleasant hikes in Joshua Tree. This book will lead you to 38 of these hikes and is a nice guide for experiencing the parks.

Joshua Tree is mostly a high desert park, so temperatures are more moderate there than many other desert parks in California. Indeed, a dusting of snow is not uncommon in the winter. There are numerous short nature trails in the park, and this book guides you to several of these, most notably the Cholla Cactus Garden. A mere 1/4 mile long, it is more of a short stroll, but if you are lucky enough to be there during the bloom, the flowers put on quite a show. Other hikes in this guide are as long as 15 miles. When travelling on these trails (and overland routes in some cases) the hypsometric maps in this book will prove useful.

On the whole, this is a very nice book. If your intent is solely to visit Joshua Tree National Park, buying it can be a good investment. But if you want to explore more of the California Desert, you would be better served to get the authors' Hiking California's Desert Parks. This book is a chapter of the latter, a much more comprehensive guide to desert hiking in California.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helpful Guide, February 10, 2008

By 

Bryant (Muskegon, MI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hiking Joshua Tree National Park: 38 Day and Overnight Hikes (Regional Hiking Series) (Paperback)

Very helpful guide to hiking in the park. Good trail directions and maps. Somewhat limited in descriptions of what you will see on the hikes but they did a good job and I found the guide very helpful. I would suggest buying their other book: Hiking California's Desert Parks if you are going to go anywhere else as the Joshua Tree hikes are essentially covered in that book.