Scenic pullout · Joshua Tree National Park
A spring roadside stop for ocotillo and valley views.
Overview
Map
Plan your stop
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Joshua Tree Tour Guide
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Joshua Tree National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the Joshua Tree audio tourRecorded for this place
Ocotillo Patch: Leaves After Rain“The Ocotillo Patch pullout is ahead, beside a stand of tall, branching desert plants. Stop for a few minutes if you're curious about how plants cope with such dry ground.”
Plays as you drive up to Ocotillo Patch in the Parkwolf Joshua Tree Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Guide
Ocotillo Patch is a scenic pull-off on Pinto Basin Road, set on an alluvial fan in a broad desert valley. A dirt parking area and interpretive kiosk sit beside the road, with wide views in every direction. It’s a brief stop rather than a developed garden or formal trail, and it makes most sense while you’re already driving this part of the park.
Runoff spreads across the alluvial fan and supports a denser concentration of ocotillo than the surrounding desert. Ocotillo isn’t a cactus; it belongs to its own plant family. After rain it can leaf out within days, then shed those leaves as it conserves water.
The plants usually flower from March through May, with red-orange blooms at the ends of their stems. Hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies visit the nectar. A rainy winter can bring a vivid display; in dry conditions the patch may look sparse or bare. For a photo, put branching ocotillo in the foreground against the valley and mountain ranges so the plant concentration reads as part of this landscape.
Wildlife
129 sightingsBighorn SheepMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
15 sightingsGolden EagleMost seen around 10 AMSighting map
413 sightingsDesert TortoiseMost seen around 8 AMSighting map
275 sightingsCoyoteMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
47 sightingsBobcatMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
32 sightingsMule DeerMost seen around 6 AMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Joshua Tree. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
Keep exploring
EasyCholla Cactus Garden Nature Trail0.3 mi · 21 min · 1.3 mi awayA quarter-mile loop through thousands of teddy-bear cholla.
ModerateSilver Bell Mine Trail1.4 mi · 1 hr · 3.1 mi awayAn informal climb to two weathered ore bins above Pinto Basin.Parkwolf’s Joshua Tree ranking
The audio tour guide for the drive, plus offline maps, trails, and wildlife heatmaps for when the signal drops.
