Joshua Tree National Park

7 days
Ages 15 through 17

April 13-19
Rendezvous: Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
Tuition: $2200

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The spring break expedition for 2008 is taking us to the warm, dry, and beautiful Joshua Tree National Park, located in the southeast corner of southern California. In April temperatures are high in the 80s and the lows in the 50s which is by far the best season to visit this desert. Joshua Tree in the spring hosts hundreds of blooming wildflowers, migrating songbirds, and many other desert dwellers. After arrival in Los Angeles, we venture east to the Mohave and Sonoran deserts to the north end of Joshua Tree National Park to set-up our basecamp. For the next few days we will be rock climbing on the famous granite monoliths that have made J-Tree one of the largest climbing meccas of the west coast. The afternoons will be filled with exploratory hikes through the Hexie and Little San Bernardino Mountains in the heart of the park. The middle of the week we will give back to our community.

Joshua Tree National Park sees thousands of visitors a year. With this amount of impact there are many service projects for us to tackle. After our climbing and service days end, we will embark on a backpacking excursion that will take us into the vast 585,000 acre wilderness of the park. We will have an opportunity to summit a few peaks, explore old cattleherder ruins, view pictographs, and sleep under the desert stars. When we return to our basecamp we will take showers, explore town, and go out for a classic desert feast. Saturday morning we will break camp early and drive back to Los Angeles International Airport. This is a spring break to remember: climbing spectacular rock formations, lending a hand to the National Park Service, backpacking the desert wilderness, and having unbelievable stories to share back at home!