The Joshua Tree Hike That Turned a Desert Skeptic Into a Believer

Look: I was raised in the Pacific Northwest. That means a childhood of playing outdoors in a perpetually damp understory that my East-Coast husband refers to casually as "spooky," a both blasé and worshipful relationship to rain, and a genuine sense of unease when I'm somewhere without a smidge of green. That said, for the longest time, I struggled to appreciate the spell that the desert casts on some people. Who'd trade dust for mud? A kaleidoscope of saturated hues for a stoic palette of golds?

Then I visited Southern California's Joshua Tree National Park, where hikes like Barker Dam made me a convert.

For those with the chops, Barker Dam likely seems like kid stuff. Indeed, Joshua Tree is filled with more challenging routes if you've got the gear and the gusto. But as a lifelong Washingtonian, I'm only just acclimating to the sensation of sun. With that in mind, Barker Dam's one-and-a-half-mile length seemed like a boon, not a drawback.

And for being technically completable in under 30 minutes, this hike offers a surprising number of mesmerizing vistas and historical diversions. As visitors weave among statuesque monzogranite boulders, they'll encounter numerous interpretive sites that help contextualize the many artifacts scattered throughout the area. Most of these connect in some way to the trail's namesake, Barker Dam—an Old West relic constructed by early cattlemen in 1900 and raised in 1949 by rancher William F. Keys. Places like the trough, where tough men paused to let their horses drink, are evocative reminders of this hard-tack past, as are the inscriptions left by cowboys in the area's sun-baked stone.

Further along the path, you'll find even more traces of Joshua Tree's human inhabitants. Shaded by the arc of a hollowed-out rock, eagle-eyed hikers will spot striking petroglyphs. These geometric designs were made over 2,000 years ago by ancestors of the Serrano, Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, and Mojave peoples. If they seem in unusually good condition, that's because they fell victim to movie magic in the 1960s, when a Hollywood crew repainted them for the backdrop of a Disney film, "Chico the Misunderstood Coyote."

This vandalism would, of course, be unacceptable today. Still, it's an interesting example of how we Americans can remake our history, covering the truth—flawed, incomplete, and often contentious—with a more photogenic picture. In places like the Southwest, where the romance of the Old West persists, it's all too easy to overlook the real story—one of conflict, resilience, and colonialism—for the allure of the region's myth.

Beyond its history, Barker Dam is also a stunning entry point to Joshua Tree's mesmerizing beauty. Though I'll always be partial to the tall trees and shadowy mountains of Washington State, it's one of many Southern Californian spots that taught me to appreciate the wide vistas of the desert. Whether we see into our past or simply to where the plains dissolve into the horizon, the effect is always the same: the surprise and excitement of yet another discovery.