The town of Joshua Tree is a scatter of low buildings, junk-art yards, cafés and rental cabins along Highway 62, with the north entrance road to the national park running south out of it into the boulders. It sits on the high desert at around 850 metres, well above the heat of Palm Springs on the other side of the mountains, and it has become a magnet for musicians, artists, climbers and people looking to get away from Los Angeles for a weekend. The vibe is part hippie, part cowboy, part art school.
Music runs deep here. The country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons spent a lot of time in these hills and died in a motel in town in 1973, and the story of what his friends did with his body afterwards, stealing it and attempting a cremation out at Cap Rock in the park, is local legend and entirely true. U2 named an album after the place in 1987, although the tree on the cover was photographed elsewhere in the desert. Today there are music festivals, small venues and studios scattered across the Morongo Basin.
Park Boulevard heads south from town into the park through the West Entrance, and within minutes you are among the strange, spiky trees that give the place its name. Joshua trees are not really trees but giant yuccas, and they grow only in the Mojave Desert. The story goes that Mormon settlers named them because their raised branches reminded them of the prophet Joshua pointing the way. Whatever the truth, they make a weird and wonderful forest.
The riding around Joshua Tree is relaxed rather than technical. Highway 62 is a busy, straight road through the desert towns, with traffic lights and strip malls, and you will want to get off it as soon as you can. The park roads are smooth and gently curving, with low speed limits and plenty of people stopping to take photos. The best seasons are spring and autumn, when the days are warm and the nights cool, and the wildflowers bloom in March and April after a wet winter.
Joshua Tree has fuel, food, motels and rental cabins, and Yucca Valley, about ten kilometres west, is larger with supermarkets and more services. Fill up before you enter the park, because there is nowhere to buy fuel inside, and the loop through to the south entrance is long.