One of the interesting Joshua Tree facts is that it isn’t really a tree, but a species of yucca! They can grow over 40 feet tall at the leisurely rate of an inch a year – typical of a desert plant.
It’s also home to a wide variety of animals such as ground squirrels, woodpeckers hawks, and ravens. We saw a couple of jack rabbits and ground squirrels in our visit.
Hidden Valley is named after the cattle rustlers who used to hide their stolen cattle in here. Easy to see why when you walk through a narrow passage in the outcropping or rocks into a huge area bordered in a circle by more rock outcroppings.
It opens up to a gorgeous expansive vista of the surrounding mountains, rocks and Joshua Trees making it one of the prettiest things to see in Joshua Tree National Park.
One one side of the mountain (the start of the tail) you get beautiful views of the rocky outcroppings in Lost Horse Valley, and on the other side of the trail you get views of Queen and Pleasant Valley.
You lose the Joshua Trees and rock outcroppings and instead have a wide open expanse with mountains as the background as the Mojave Desert begins to meet the Colorado Desert.