Читать книгу 101 Hikes in Southern California. Exploring Mountains, Seashore, and Desert онлайн

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Joshua tree woodland, Mojave Desert

There, at elevations of 3,000–5,000 feet, thrives the pinyon-juniper woodland, largely characterized by the rather stunted looking one-leaf pinyon pine and the California juniper. Large sections of the Mojave, again in the elevation range of about 3,000–5,000 feet, are dominated by Joshua tree woodland. Here the indicator plant is an outsized member of the yucca family—the Joshua tree. Joshua Tree National Park preserves some, but hardly all, of the finest stands of these odd, tree-sized plants.

The San Jacinto Mountains

Moving south from the San Bernardino Mountains and Joshua Tree National Park, we find the northwest-southeast-trending San Jacinto Mountains and their southerly extension, the Santa Rosa Mountains. These lofty ranges comprise the northern ramparts of what geologists call the Peninsular Ranges—so named because they extend, more or less continuously, south across the Mexican border and comprise the spine of the long, thin peninsula of Baja California.