Kristina ventured back to Joshua Tree National Park and shared this recap:
I did the Berdoo canyon loop, it’s nice, pretty short. I would say this is a nice addition if you are visiting Joshua tree. I had to loop past Palm Springs to get back to the park (you exit fully on the other side of the park), so I stopped there for a bit (you could also just turn around and go back through the canyon – it seemed like folks were doing that and looping through Geology Tour Road). At the end, there were maybe 15 cars and groups of people parked off the road and shooting at the canyon – I was expecting some sort of organized range but yeah very disorganized. A ranger did go by at the same time and seemed fine with everything. On Berdoo canyon, there were maybe 3 obstacles. I met a couple in an old 4 runner and we went together. I had no problem with anything in the jeep, but they picked a tire off the ground on one of the obstacles.
I also really enjoyed the covington flat area and eureka peak. There was pretty much no one out there and the peak is very nice. There were also denser groves of large Joshua trees across almost the whole area – very cool if you want to see some larger/wilder Joshua trees than you see on the road. It was safe enough, this would probably be an awesome stargazing loop at night.
The roads in the park were shorter, pretty, and no problem in the jeep – some washouts would block sedans or lower clearance SUV’s. It did look like they could get sketchy if it was wet/muddy. There also seemed to be a lot more outside the park. There was a large organized camp (maybe 20 trailers) on the BLM camp land just outside Joshua Tree with jeeps/side-by-sides/bikes that were heading out from the BLM land.
The sunset in the park was possibly the best part of the trip – looks unreal over the desert with the trees.
