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Start at 1. Welcome to Jumbo Rocks

Start at the trailhead. Each story plays as you reach its place on the trail.

Free audio tour4 stories

Skull Rock Nature Trail, Joshua Tree National Park, California

An easy walk from Jumbo Rocks campground to Skull Rock: how water carved the boulders and the skull's eyes, the plants and animals of the high desert, the people whose homeland this is, and one of the darkest night skies in Southern California.

6 min of audio · 0 miles · Read the transcript

Your route

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Tap a stop to hear its story. Reference route. Outline markers are optional stories.

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    Getting started

    1. Start in the right placeThis tour begins at Welcome to Jumbo Rocks. Start at the trailhead; the first story plays when you arrive.
    2. Let's hear itUse headphones or the phone speaker at a comfortable volume. Download the tour while you still have signal.
    3. Stories meet you thereYour phone's location starts each story automatically. Music flows straight into the narration. Keep this page open; it keeps the screen awake for GPS.
    4. You're ready to exploreThe trail starts inside Jumbo Rocks Campground, across from the amphitheater. If you're not camping, park at the Skull Rock lot on Park Blvd instead (it fills on weekends). No cell signal: download first. Press Start at the trailhead, walk north on the trail, and put your phone away. It's about half a mile to Skull Rock.

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    Facts from the National Park Service (Skull Rock, geology, hiking, Jumbo Rocks Campground, animals, people and dark-sky pages), Recreation.gov, Hiking Project and Digital-Desert (trail signs). Trail geometry © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Music: Dvořák, Largo from the New World Symphony, Musopen (public domain). Narration is AI-generated. Not an official National Park Service product.