Thursday 19th April

I found the atmosphere of Yucca Valley, California to be very different from previous towns because it manages to retain the feel of a small community whilst having more main roads, large supermarkets and a population of almost 21,000 people. Exploration found a large playground, baseball field, senior centre, library, skate park, rose garden and even a museum which as the town’s website describes it is a “family-oriented facility with collections and exhibits related to the desert’s unique natural and historical elements. A notable difference to the previous three states was the heat, by half ten in the morning the temperature was already at around thirty degrees Celsius making me wary of spending the afternoon at Joshua Tree National Park surrounded by desert sand which can reach heights of 82 or more on a hot day. I found it amazing that regardless of these conditions the desert was not as barren as I had imagined, quite the opposite actually with a wide range of flora, fauna and wildlife which we were privileged enough to see up close. One of the guides I purchased shows that there are 54 different species of wildflowers, cacti, trees and shrubs within Joshua Tree and explains how the vegetation adapts to survive the harsh conditions of the desert. The desert itself is an ever adapting ecosystem, mostly because of wind and rain but also sadly from humans, with fires and air pollution from cars being the primary factors. As a result, the rangers have to monitor air conditions closely which we saw from numerous boards displaying the days air quality and chance of fire. I had assumed that all of the plant life I saw in the park belonged there, but in fact several varieties of grass are nonnative and these cause problems because they are taking over much like weeds do in our gardens. The National Park service takes this very seriously and according to the Joshua Tree website they have been tackling the invasive non native species since the 70's, "Joshua Tree staff and community volunteers actively pursue invasive exotic plants. Since the 1970s, we’ve removed over 6,700 tamarisk plants, 15,000 Asian mustard plants, 1,000 tumbleweeds, and 1,200 bunches of fountaingrass."

References:

‘Town of Yucca Valley: Hi-Desert Nature Museum’. http://www.yucca-valley.org/departments/museum.html”

http://www.nps.gov/jotr/naturescience/nonnativespecies.htm