Final JT Hikes: Arch Rock & Pine City

Looking to plan a weekend in Joshua Tree? Check out this overview of our 2-day itinerary.

After watching sunrise at Cholla Cactus Garden, we go a little further down the road to White Tank Campground. From that lot, there is a short hike to Arch Rock — if you’re visiting Joshua Tree, you don’t want to miss this.

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We can tell right from the parking lot that this is a cool area with impressive rock formations. In fact, we recognize that this is the perfect place to camp in Joshua Tree — it’s just far enough removed from the main Hidden Valley / Ryan Ranch area that it feels remote, and the nearby rocks make it look other-worldly. It reminds me of our campsite in Spitzkoppe, Namibia — I loved that place so much!

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Within a 5-10 minute walk of the parking lot, we come across Arch Rock.

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Fortunately at this hour, there are not many people here and we have the place mostly to ourselves. This allows for some great photo ops.

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Props to Kelley for spotting this photo op — she took a shot with her iPhone, but we realized it’d be funnier with my bandaged fingers.

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A few more shots from the Arch Rock loop:

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This shot reminds me of the Remarkable Rocks at Kangaroo Island in Australia:

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Next we hop back in the car and drive to Skull Rock (feature not trail), which is located just off the side of the road.

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Can you see the face?

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How about now?

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We walk a little further along that trail, thinking that another attraction — Jumbo Rocks — is within walking distance (it turns out you have to drive a little further up the road to see that location so we decide to skip it). But the views here are impressive regardless.

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From there, we drive a little ways further to Pine City trailhead.

I read on-line that the Pine City trail is 4.4 miles out-and-back… and in person a sign says it’s only one mile, though someone has adjusted it to read “1.9” — we track it on Kelley’s Fitbit, and I can report back that it is indeed 1.9 miles each way, or just under four miles total.

A little bit about this trail — at first glance, it appears to be relatively uninteresting. All of the trails we did yesterday featured something cool: a reflective lake, an old mine, the ruins of a burned down ranch. Pine City trail has none of that. But don’t let it fool you because this hike is just lovely. And there are almost no other people here — we see maybe three hikers total, compared to around a hundred at Barker Dam yesterday. My favorite part of this trail is purple cactus and red cactus, the only place we spot those colors in the park.

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Note the snowy mountains in the distance below. Love that juxtaposition of desert and snow.

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Purple cacti!

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And now red cacti!

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For good measure, here’s a boring green cactus:

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I declare this my favorite Joshua Tree in the whole park:

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We turn around when we get to this sign and go back the way we came:

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And that’s it for Joshua Tree! I’ll be back tomorrow with one more post from our weekend trip — we head to Palm Springs for lunch, then do a really scenic hike just south of that area to a palm tree oasis.

2 thoughts on “Final JT Hikes: Arch Rock & Pine City

  1. “My favorite Joshua tree in the park” hahaha that was a dapper tree. Those hikes were awesome! Felt amazing to move my body and get fresh air while being constantly awed by nature!!!

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