Cycling Joshua Tree National Park, California
This is a sleeper - Joshua Tree National Park is the tenth most visited national park in the United States’ 63 National Park system with 2.4 million visitors in 2020 (just behind Olympic NP in Washington, but well behind #1 Great Smoky Mountains at 12m).
Joshua Tree National Monument was upgraded to Joshua Tree National Park in 1994 and includes parts of each of the Mojave Desert and Colorado Desert in its 790,636 acres. The park is named after the many Joshua Trees (native to the Mojave Desert) within its borders.
There are three primary climbs in Joshua Tree NP:
Keys View Road
Ride 21 miles gaining 2,593’ at 2.1% average grade.
Pinto Basin Road North
10.3 miles gaining 1,898’ at 3.4%
Pinto Basin Road South
10.7 miles gaining 2,039’ at 3.6%
Thank you Bruce Hamilton and Stacy Topping!!