Joshua Tree Saloon

A recent trip to Joshua Tree revealed a unique group of buildings and saloon. This composite panoramic image was shot with a wide angle lens. It is... more

by Jeff Burgess

Title

Joshua Tree Saloon

Artist

Jeff Burgess

Medium

Photograph - Giclee Print Fusion Photography

Description

A recent trip to Joshua Tree revealed a unique group of buildings and saloon. This composite panoramic image was shot with a wide angle lens. It is a fused work of composite elements taken from the city, park, and other areas of desert in California and Nevada.

Joshua Tree National park was initially created as a National Monument on 10 August 1936, containing 825,000 acres (334,000 ha). The park was elevated to a National Park on 31 October 1994 by the Desert Protection Act, which also added 234,000 acres to the park.
The park is named after the Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia) which can been seen on the far right of this image in the background. The park is in the Mojave Desert. The trees are now blooming and it is quite a sight. In addition to Joshua tree forests, the western part of the park includes some of the most interesting geologic displays found in California's deserts. The dominant geologic features of this landscape are hills of bare rock, usually broken up into loose boulders.
These broken rocks/boulder piles were formed with the disintegration of lava extruded from past volcanoes�. Temperatures are most comfortable in the spring and fall, with an average high/low of 85 and 50 �F (29 and 10 �C) respectively. Winter brings cooler days, around 60 �F (16 �C), and freezing nights. It occasionally snows at higher elevations. Summers are hot, over 100 �F (38 �C) during the day and not cooling much below 75 �F (24 �C) until the early hours of the mornin.
Joshua trees dominate the open spaces of the park, but in among the rock outcroppings are pi�on pine, California juniper (Juniperus californica), Quercus turbinella (desert scrub oak), Quercus john-tuckeri (Tucker's oak), and Quercus cornelius-mulleri (Muller's oak). These communities are under some stress, however, as the climate was wetter until the 1930s, with the same hot and dry conditions that provoked the Dust Bowl affecting the local climate. These cycles were nothing new, but the original vegetation did not prosper when wetter cycles returned. The difference may have been human development. Cattle grazing took out some of the natural cover and made it less resistant to the changes. But the bigger problem seems to be invasive species, such as cheatgrass, which during wetter periods fill in below and among the pines and oak. In drier times, they die back, but do not quickly decompose. This makes wildfires hotter and more destructive, which kills some of the trees that would have otherwise survived. When the area regenerates, these non-native grasses form a thick layer of turf that makes it harder for the pine and oak seedlings to get a roothold.
You can drive through the park easily but check out the small city of Joshua Tree first. It is fun.

Uploaded

March 26th, 2016