Sports & Outdoors
Castle Mountains National Monument
Check pricesA roughly 21,000-acre desert monument in the eastern Mojave with Joshua tree forests, open grasslands, and a quiet setting.
Photo: InyoCima, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped and resized.
Sports & OutdoorsOutdoor AdventureLocal Gem
Mojave National Preserve
Climb the singing sand of the Kelso Dunes, explore a lava tube and drive through Joshua tree country between I-15 and I-40.
Kelso Depot, Kelbaker Road · Kelso, CA
About Mojave National Preserve
Mojave National Preserve covers about 1.5 million acres of desert between Interstates 15 and 40, with entrances near Baker and along both highways, and there is no entrance fee. The most popular hike climbs the Kelso Dunes: 3 miles round trip and 600 feet of gain in loose sand with no shade. The Cima volcanic field has a lava tube you can walk into. The Kelso Depot visitor center is closed indoors for now, so get information at the Hole-in-the-Wall Information Center, and carry plenty of water because summers are very hot.
- #desert
- #sand dunes
- #hiking
- #lava tube
- #joshua trees
Printable maps
What's around here?
The closest stops to Mojave National Preserve, ordered by straight-line distance. A few more like it, plus some different kinds of fun so you can build a full day.
