Hiking Southern California’s Desert Parks: Featuring Anza-Borrego, Joshua, and the Mojave Preserve

The region below Death Valley National Park in southern California’s desert region contains a variety of public lands and unique hiking opportunities. East of Los Angeles, San Diego, and Palm Springs and south of Las Vegas lies a desert region home to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Joshua Tree National Park, the Mojave National Preserve, and the Mojave Trails National Monument, just established in 2016.

These parks and preserves offer a wealth of hiking opportunities, allowing hikers to enjoy the rare flora and fauna and incredible natural formations that are unique to these lands - from canyons and panoramic views of distant mountain ranges to springs and desert oases. This guide will cover 50 of the most scenic and worthwhile hikes across each of these parks, preserves, and monuments. Also included will be hidden gems in the area like hikes in the Mecca Hills Wilderness between Anza-Borrego and Joshua Tree, as well as the Indian Canyons Nature Preserve just south of Palm Springs.

Lewis Hinchman was awarded an A.B. in Politics from Princeton University in 1968. After three semesters as a Fulbright scholar in Germany, he went on to do graduate work in the Government Department at Cornell University, from which he received his PhD in 1979. While he has published three academic books and has contributed to multiple other scholarly works, he has previously published Hiking Tropical Australia: Queensland and Northern New South Wales with Grass Tree Press in 1999 and has been hiking the American West and Southwest since 1975. He has lived in Moab, Utah for the past 15 years, frequently traveling to the borderlands to hike. He hopes to put his extensive experience with and knowledge of these hiking areas into print with this guidebook.

Lewis is eager to promote the book through his own efforts, and as he is retired, has plenty of time to devote to making this guidebook a success.