• What to know if you go

DAVID FACIANE/Special (ENLARGE)

A Joshua tree, framed at sunset, creates a striking silhouette. It is said that the tree got its name from Mormon pioneers who saw in its branches the prophet Joshua's arms raised toward heaven.

DAVID FACIANE/Special (ENLARGE)

Beautiful flowers delight campers each spring in Joshua Tree, including the desert mallow (above), also known as the apricot mallow, and the bright green cactus flower silver cholla (below).

DAVID FACIANE/Special (ENLARGE)

A striking Mojave Mound cactus flower blazes in Joshua Tree National Park, where two desert ecosystems meet.

DEBORAH GEERING/Special (ENLARGE)

Park visitors shouldn't touch the wildlife, but when David Faciane found this tortoise napping on the road, he relocated it.

Joshua Tree National Park, Calif.

A lone howl came from far away.

It was answered by yips and cries that seemed to come from all around our tent.

A few minutes later, more howls, this time closer. Then steps. And sniffing, sniffing — to my immediate left, just outside the tent. If I had dared to move from my sleeping bag, I could have poked that coyote right on his busybody snoot.

But I had absolutely no intention of moving. Neither did my tentmate — who I could tell by his breathing, or lack thereof — was listening as intently as I was.

The next morning, my outdoorsy friend Dave confirmed what we had both suspected. Our tent was surrounded by coyote prints, which then led across our campsite and back into the brush.

"I thought you were going to freak out when that sniffing started," he joked.

What, me? Scared? Nahhh ... at least not that I was going to admit to. Dave had suggested this visit to Joshua Tree National Park when he learned that my sister lived just an hour away, in Riverside, Calif. He had been before and loved it, and thought I'd enjoy seeing the wildflowers in their springtime bloom.

And I, showing true good-sport-girlfriend form, hadn't blanched a bit. I hadn't been camping in at least 10 years, and in just the first 12 hours of this trip I had already survived a cold snap, damp firewood and — horror of horrors — chemical pit toilets. No way would a little coyote action break my spirit now.

I'm glad it didn't. Our next few days in the desert were among the most romantic of my life. Seven months into our deepening friendship, Dave and I had carved out some time together that had no itinerary other than enjoying each other's presence and basking in the startling beauty of our surroundings. I expected adventure, but romance? Not when the accommodations did not include running water.

We certainly could have had a romantic camping experience closer to home — in the Carolina mountains or on Cumberland Island, for instance — but Joshua Tree is a special place. Within its 794,000 acres, two distinct desert ecosystems meet: the "low" Colorado Desert and the "high" Mojave Desert. The cooler and wetter Mojave is home to the park's namesake plant, supposedly named by Mormon pioneers who saw in its branches the prophet Joshua's arms raised toward heaven.

Of course, I didn't know any of this, and I was blown away by the scenery. Amid the Joshua trees, massive rock formations appear to have been dropped out of the sky — though actually they were left behind when the ground eroded around them. In other places, the landscape is dominated by dunes or huge Mars-like piles of crumbling red rock.

But this place is no tumbleweed farm. Life prospers here. When we visited in April, it was cold at night; on our last morning we even woke up to sleet. But the sun brightened each day and warmed the rocks, and we discovered jack rabbits and lizards and even a rare desert tortoise tempting fate by sunning itself in the road. (Dave moved it, and later the park's chief naturalist, Joe Zarki, told me that that is the only circumstance where it is appropriate to touch one of these threatened creatures.)

Dave had promised me a snake-free experience, and he was right — we saw none of the six species of rattlesnakes that call the park home, nor did we see their creepy friends, the tarantula and the scorpion. I didn't miss them, but I was sorry we never caught a glimpse of the park's 250 desert bighorn sheep.

"You get out into the back country, and it's really quite amazing how much wildlife there is out there," said Kenji Haroutunian, president of Friends of Joshua Tree, a rock-climbing organization. "There's really nowhere else quite like it on the planet."

By day, we explored little pieces of the vast park, hiking past an abandoned 100-year-old gold mine on our way to a palm-lined oasis; identifying cactus species on a self-guided botanical tour; smooching behind ancient petroglyph-etched rocks on a marked trail. From Keys View in the Little San Bernardino Mountains on the south side of the park, we could see the San Andreas fault and the Salton Sea.

At night, we snuggled in our tent with a flashlight, breaking basic camping rules by sipping wine (are coyotes attracted to pinot noir?) while we took turns reading William Stafford's "Methow River Poems" and sharing the kinds of stories from our own lives that wouldn't get told on shorter dates.

Rock climbing is big in Joshua Tree, and we saw several groups scaling formations with names like Cap Rock and Skull Rock.

"It's a world-famous location in the climbing world," Haroutunian said. That's because the rock surface, he explained, "has very sharp crystals, and that makes it very good for cutting your skin off, but also for getting a good grip and getting your shoes to stick."

Climbers love Joshua Tree from autumn through spring (it's hot in the summer). Nature lovers are especially fond of the park in the spring, when the wildflowers are in bloom. The Joshua trees themselves start the show in February with clusters of large creamy blooms. Then come the annuals in the lower elevations, progressing to higher elevations through March. Finally, around April, the cactuses show off their bright blossoms.

"The spring season tends to be the busiest both from the standpoint of the rock climber and the people seeing the wildflowers," Zarki said.

His personal favorite flower is a low-elevation annual in the mallow family called the desert fivespot — a pink, cup-shaped blossom with five dark magenta spots in the bottom of the cup. "It's exquisitely beautiful," he said.

I couldn't get enough of any of it — the flowers, the rocks, the critters, the dazzling stars in the big, big sky.

Four days weren't enough — especially when I discovered the token-fed shower booths at a supply store just outside the park's entrance. Nothing restores the romance like a thorough scrub-down. I'll always carry those days in the desert with Dave in my heart, but I never felt the need to carry them on my skin.

IF YOU GO

Getting there

Joshua Tree National Park is 140 miles east of Los Angeles, off I-10 and Twentynine Palms Highway. Fly into Los Angeles or, better yet, Ontario or Palm Springs, Calif. Delta Air Lines offers nonstop flights to all three. Expect to pay at least $300 round trip.

About the park

There are nine campgrounds inside the park. Weekly vehicle permits are $15; daily camping fees are $5-$10. You must carry your own food, water and firewood into the park.

Any camping gear you don't want to carry with you can be rented or purchased in nearby Twentynine Palms and Joshua Tree. Ranger-conducted walks, hikes and campfire talks are offered primarily in the spring and fall. You can also take a more intensive course through the Desert Institute, offered by the nonprofit Joshua Tree National Park Association (www.joshuatree.org).

Where to stay

Nearby hotels include the 29 Palms Inn (www.29palmsinn.com, 760-367-3505), the Best Western Garden Inn & Suites (www.bestwestern.com, 760-367-9141), Roughley Manor bed-and-breakfast (www.roughleymanor.com, 760-367-3238) and Joshua Tree Inn (www.joshuatreeinn.com, 760-366-1188), where country rock legend Gram Parsons died in 1973.

A park story

Speaking of Parsons, a weird piece of music history involves Joshua Tree National Park. After Parsons died of a drug overdose, his body was taken to Los Angeles to be flown to Louisiana for burial. But two friends, acting on a wish Parsons had once expressed, stole the coffin and headed back to the desert. At the base of a rock formation in Joshua Tree, they poured gasoline in the coffin and set Parsons' body ablaze. Eventually, the two were arrested and fined for stealing the coffin, and Parsons' remains were laid to rest near New Orleans.