Like the park’s namesake tree, every visit to Joshua Tree National Park in California is different. Some are wide ranging and unpredictable, others are short and prickly, and some of them look best under a starry night sky. Grab your water bottle and find out which Joshua Tree experience is for you. Photo by Hannah Schwalbe, National Park Service.

Wow! What an amazing sunset over Death Valley National Park in California. The shadowed ripples and stark, graceful curves of Mesquite Flat Dunes cover a vast area bordered by mountains and salt flats in this extraordinary park. Photo by Usha Peddamatham (www.sharetheexperience.org).

The night sky over Joshua Tree National Park is a glittering dome of sparkling stars, bright planets and streaking meteors – but most people no longer get to see it where they live. In urban and suburban settings, artificial lighting and atmospheric pollutants wash out the light of the stars. Boasting some of the darkest nights in Southern California, Joshua Tree offers many visitors the chance to admire the Milky Way for the first time in their lives and was recently designated an International Dark Sky Park. Photo by Brad Sutton, National Park Service.

While Joshua Tree National Park is known for its twisty, spikey Joshua trees, the park is home to so much more! In this southern California landmark, three distinct ecosystems come together to create extraordinary diversity. It also has some pretty amazing views, like this one of sunset over the “jumping” cholla cactus garden. Photo by Nina Mayer Ritchie (www.sharetheexperience.org).

Welcome to the hottest, driest, lowest place on earth. Death Valley National Park is a land of extremes and striking contrast. It also has some amazing sunsets. Photo Mesquite Flat Dunes by Steve Perry (www.sharetheexperience.org).

Today, President Obama announced three new national monuments: Sand to Snow National Monument, Mojave Trails National Monument and Castle Mountains National Monument. These new monuments protect 1.8 million acres of spectacular landscapes, fragile wildlife habitat, unique historic resources and important cultural sites – ensuring that current and future generations can enjoy the unique beauty of the California desert.

Mojave Trails  is a stunning mosaic of rugged mountain ranges, ancient lava flows and spectacular sand dunes. The monument contains the longest remaining undeveloped stretch of Route 66 and some of the best preserved sites from the World War II-era Desert Training Center. Photo by @mypubliclands.

An integral part of the California desert, Castle Mountains National Monument protects some of the finest Joshua tree forest and native desert grassland in the Mojave Desert and contains important cultural resources including Native American archeological sites and vestiges of mining, ranching and the railroad from the period of western expansion. Photo by National Park Service.

Rising from the floor of the Sonoran Desert to San Gorgonio Peak, the tallest in southern California, Sand to Snow National Monument includes lush desert oases, significant archeological sites and 30 miles of the world-famous Pacific Crest Trail. The area is a favorite for camping, hiking, hunting, horseback riding, photography, wildlife viewing and even skiing. Photo by @mypubliclands.

Trona Pinnacles is one of the most unusual geologic wonders in the California Desert. This unique landscape consists of more than 500 tufa pinnacles — some as tall as 140 feet — rising from the bed of the Searles Dry Lake basin. Michael Shainblum captured this dramatic photo of Trona Pinnacles at sunset, which is a popular time to visit the sight. 

When visiting this area, you will understand why more than 30 movies and commercials are filmed here every year. Ideally suited for science fiction backdrops Star Trek V, Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes and Battlestar Galactica were all shot here.

Photo courtesy of Michael Shainblum.

Ken Lee took this fantastic photo from the California Desert National Conservation Area. Here’s what he had to say about it. “A heavenly nocturnal show of the movement of the stars with the glow of the little town of Trona below. I had driven four hours to see this, a privilege to see the night sky without too much light pollution, utterly magical. The Trona Pinnacles is one of the most unusual geological features in the Mojave Desert of California, its unusual landscape consisting of hundreds of tufa spires rising from a former lake bed, stark mountains bracketing the formations.”