A young family makes their way along Pine City Trail at Joshua Tree National Park.
It’s the first day of May, and the colorful beauty of the desert’s tiny wildflowers are still around me as I hike along one of the many trails in Joshua Tree National Park. It’s mid-morning, and temperatures later on will reach into the mid 90s, but a cool breeze and a few drifting high clouds are making the walk pleasant. Today I’m taking the Pine City Trail, an easy one and a half-mile hike that takes me to Pine City, a small canyon and rugged wash filled with massive boulders some the size of two-story houses, and pinyon pines scattered all around, some literally growing out from openings in the rocks. Pine City, a former mining camp, is just one of the many wonders of this 585,000-acre national park.
