California Hiking & Riding Trail

Joshua Tree National Park: April 10 - 13, 2026

Pre-Trip Logistics

Permit & Travel

Doing this trip any later in the spring would verge on dangerous. Our hottest day was predicted to be 83. And our coldest night was predicted to be 52.

Unlike most national park backpacking trips, getting a permit for this trail is pretty easy. There is no quota and you can reserve same day or in up to six months in advance: https://www.recreation.gov/permits/4675329

When reserving your permit, you need to put the approximate locations of where you’re planning to camp, your car information and pay the $6 fee.

The California Hiking & Riding Trail is not a loop. We only had one car and needed to arrange for a ride from the end of the trail where we left my car (North Entrance) to the start the start of the trail (Black Rock Canyon Campground).

Gear & Clothes

I have a general packing spreadsheet that I keep for every trip and then modify based on the conditions. For this trip, I didn’t bring my water filter because there was no water source to filter but besides that had all the usual items. Sun-shirts were essential and layers for when the temperature dropped at night.

Food & Water

THERE IS NO WATER ANYWHERE ON THE TRAIL. I carried a 48oz Nalgene and another 32oz Nalgene. We cached 3 gallons of water per person along the trail.

For breakfast, I typically eat oatmeal with a peanut butter packet and some nuts or dried fruit, maybe a protein bar. For lunch, we will have a snack or two that we stashed in the brain of our packs when we stop for a rest break. These snack lunches consist of some type of meat stick, packaged olives, granola bar, trail mix, rice crispy treats, Cliff blocks, beef jerky and nerds gummy clusters.

For dinner, we would make a freeze dried Mountain House meal, paired with the perfect electrolyte powder-mixed water to wash it down and we always managed to find something sweet stashed in our bags for dessert.

Day 1, April 9, 2025: My friend, Ashley landed at LAX at 3:15pm from Denver. I was wrapping up my last day at my job. Our trip to Joshua Tree was my last weekend before moving back to the east coast and starting a new job there. During my 8 years in California, I somehow never made it into the park.

We packed up our backpacks and the car and hit the road.  If you have ever been to LA, you know trying to get anywhere at 5:30pm on a weekday is a bit of a nightmare, especially when you start in Venice and are crossing the whole city.

We got out to the park much later than we had hoped and planned for. We still needed to cache our water, find a place to sleep and pitch our tent.

Caching water was a bit tricky, especially in the dark and took longer than expected. The silver lining of driving around at night is we didn’t see any of the park, none of the scenery was spoiled early. You need to simultaneously hide your water a bit, hope it isn’t baking in direct sunlight and make it easy to find along the trail. We cached a gallon for each of us at three locations, close to where we would be sleeping for the night and wrote our names on them.

Once that was out of the way, we parked at the end of the trail at the North Entrance of the park and camped right there. By the time we crawled into our sleeping bags it was around 1am.

Day 2, April 10, 2025: We had scheduled a taxi to pick us up from the North Entrance and take us to the start of the trailhead at Blackrock Canyon Campground. We were a little anxious about our riding showing up at the right place and on time because there was no cell phone service and no way to get in contact with him.

Everything ended up going smoothly. We walked toward the park entrance a bit so we could flag him down and we had about a 40 minute ride to the trailhead. The ride was organized through Desert Sun Cab. I had called and made the reservation a few weeks before the trip. We paid $100 in cash total for the ride.

Once at the trailhead, we made our breakfast, used the bathrooms in the campground, threw out trash and off we went.

Our understanding based on various posts and blogs we read before the trip was that the first day would be the most difficult. You’re going mostly uphill for approximately the first 6.5 miles and that would be the bulk of your elevation gain for the trail (or so we thought).

We found our water where we left it, under a Joshua Tree. We cached it a little early compared to where we were planning to sleep. We refilled our empty bottles and then had to carry the gallon jug in our arms the rest of the way for the day (and a bit into the next day until we found a campground with trashcans).

We camped in the Covington Zone which offered disperse camping spots. We chose a spot in a grassy field with a big beautiful Joshua Tree so we’d have some shade. This was the most rugged and isolated location we camped on the trip. Ashley had brought a blanket and we laid and read and napped and then set up camp and made dinner. It was really peaceful and beautiful and the stars were brilliant.

We saw very few people We hiked for 8.4 miles and 1,365ft of elevation gain.

Day 3, April 11, 2025: We woke up thinking we had gotten the hardest part of the trail out of the way and that it would be smooth sailing on mostly flat trail. I am not sure where the bad information came from and I can take the blame for not doing enough research but the second day had us going up hill again almost immediately. Maybe it actually was harder or maybe because it was so unexpected but the second day felt brutal and the uphill stretches felt never ending. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky or a tree nearby to offer any reprieve from the heat.

We ended up squished underneath the saddest bush you’ve ever seen to catch a break, drink some water and eat a snack. For some reason, I had packed four small loose apples in my backpack. Ashley rightfully made fun of me for this very weird choice. But rumor has it her body would still be under that bush if she didn’t eat one and get brought back from the brink.

We were sucking down water but it never felt like enough. As we were getting closer to where we cached our water, we couldn’t wait to be restocked and not feel like we had to ration what we had left.

However, when we got to our water, one of the gallon jugs was tipped over on its side. Not thinking too much of it, we went to right it and realized the half the water had leaked out and there was a hole punched into the lid. We still had a whole other gallon so we weren’t fully panicking yet but upon inspection that one also had a hole punched into the top. Were we going to have enough water? Was it an animal? Was it a person? Did anything get into the water that would make us sick? Were we being poisoned? The panic spiral came for us and we were too tired and thirsty to fight it.

We carried our maybe poisoned water jugs and sad little bodies to Ryan Campground. We dropped our stuff on a picnic table and went to use the drop toilets while we contemplated our existence and what we were going to do. Was it better to drink the maybe poisoned water or drink nothing? Were we going to have to get ranger rescued and end our trip early?

When we got back to our stuff the campground host was there. He asked if we had reserved the campground we dropped our stuff in (we hadn’t). We explained our water situation and asked him if he thought it was okay to drink. “Give me that" was his response. He brought us to a campsite with a very cool GIANT rock, said we could have it for the night and he would be right back with water for us from his own personal supply.

The man was a saint and without sounding hyperbolic, saved our lives. We ate and painted the scenery and then started to get the giggles about how unfortunate our day had gone.

We hiked 12.94 miles, 1,427 feet of elevation and survived.

Day 4, April 12, 2025: After filling all our water bottles to the tippy top, we headed out and finally had a flat day and in the best possible way, it was perfectly uneventful. It’s remarkable how much the desert is filled with life despite extremely inhospitable conditions. There is all sorts of vegetation and flowers and little critters. Having a bit of a breather to take it all in was really lovely.

We camped at White Tank campground in the Twin Tanks Zone. This was my favorite campsite despite there being a lot of other campers nearby. The scenery was like a ball pit but instead of balls, it was giant, climbable rocks stacked all over the place. The sunset was stunning and someone got engaged and someone else flew a kite.

We hiked for 10.99 miles and 505ft of elevation gain.

Day 5, April 13, 2025: We got up EARLY to beat the heat as much as possible. The sunrise was pretty and the cooler temperatures felt great. It was nice to be able to wear layers and be able to take them off once I started warming up. The last little bit was tough. We had already hiked the length we had anticipated we had left. There was a lot of “it has to be right up here” going on. This section of the trail was mostly flat and windy with only each other and ankle high shrubs for company. We finally spotted my car and the parking lot when we were maybe only 100 yards away from it.

As is backpacking tradition, as soon as we got to the car we changed into clean clothes we had left for ourselves and took off our boots. We drank the nice, warm water we had stashed in the car for this exact purpose. And off to McDonalds we went.

I got a Sprite and Ashley got a Diet Coke and we split two apple pies and ice cream sundae all smashed together (if you know, you know). It was 11:15am and it was the best thing I’ve ever tasted.

We drove through downtown Joshua Tree and stopped at The Station to get a t-shirt. We perused a few other stores but In-n-Out was calling our name.

We hiked for 7.85 miles and 184 feet of elevation gain.

And drove 150 miles back to Venice.

Final Thoughts: I am really glad we did this trip and trail. It was challenging and different. It felt like a really nice way to close out my time in California. However, the desert landscape is not my favorite. The lack of water was challenging. My hands felt grubby the whole time because I didn’t want to waste our water washing them. Saying the desert is dry seems fairly obvious but the conditions are hard to describe if you haven’t experienced them. We drank a lot of water and barely peed. We had to chew gum to keep our mouths from drying out. The sun was relentless and there is little to no shade. The scenery is also fairly repetitive and most of what we saw was easily reachable via car. A lot of the trail felt like true wilderness but the camping sites had people car camping and it didn’t feel like a backpacking escape. The juice didn’t feel worth the squeeze. The desert area of California has a lot to offer and your time might be better served doing day hikes and visiting other surrounding areas.

That said, if you have the itch to backpack, it is easy to get a permit, the sunsets are unmatched and what a blessing a privilege to be able to move your body comfortably and be outside.

Pro-Tip: If you have any planning questions, call the park. I wanted to confirm that our permit looked good and logistically made sense. They were helpful and nice and provided recommendations. This is the phone number for the Permitting Office: 760-367-5554