Wikieup, Arizona.

US Route 93 is a major highway between Phoenix and Las Vegas, Nevada’s gambling mecca. A stretch of highway, some 54 miles (87 km) between Wickenburg and Wikieup features a forest of Joshua Trees. Don’t confuse this forest with California’s Joshua Tree National Park. In fact, Arizona happens to feature a total of three Joshua Tree forests. Regular readers might remember the mighty saguaro cactus lives only in the Sonoran Desert. The Joshua Tree, really a yucca plant, lives only in the Mojave Desert. Both of these unusual plants thrive in only one place in the world, their respective deserts.

Look closely at the Joshua Tree. It’s crazy branches carry small “knobs” of a plant that clearly resembles the low growing yucca plant. The yucca is actually related to the lily plant and this species, like the saguaro, is long lived (upwards of 300 years) on little water.  Also similar to the saguaro cactus, these plants sometimes stand alone, sometimes in forests. The densest part of the forest lies near the town of Nothing, Arizona. At one time, the settlement, established in 1977 on a location about 100 miles (170 km) northwest of Phoenix, listed a population of 4. As of today, Google lists the population of Nothing at 0 (zero), in other words, nothing.

A recent trip to Las Vegas brought us down this interesting highway. Others may have not noticed the unusual trees, thinking instead about the lure of Vegas and the possibility of instant wealth and prosperity. Not being a gambler, (spending only $1 on a single pull on a slot machine this trip), my mind wasn’t encumbered by such distractions. I was totally unaware of the beauty of this 50+ mile drive’s scenic forest until I saw the first trees. Even though I’d never seen one before (at least that I remember), I recognized them instantly from photos of Joshua Tree National Park, one of the places on my list of parks to visit at some point.

On our way home from Vegas, I was getting drowsy and let Lynn drive for awhile. I woke up after having passed the thickest part of the forest, but we stopped at a couple of pulloffs along the way so I could burn some pixels and capture some of the beauty of these interesting and unusual trees. A couple of places we stopped had the trees protected by private fencing, obviously not on public property. One place, pictured above, appeared to have a trail meandering through it. I have no idea whether it was a public trail or not. It was only a few yards from the highway and the “parking” was just a wide spot on the shoulder.

I still haven’t taken my visit to the Joshua Tree National Park off the agenda, and now that I’ve seen these unique plants in the wild, it makes me want to visit the park all the more. For more information about these yucca plants and the history of the area, click here. The gallery of images below were captured by stopping along the highway (at appropriately wide pull offs, of which there are very few), and capturing a few images at each stop. In most browsers, you can click on one of the images to enlarge it and to scroll through the gallery.

John Steiner