Keys View - Joshua Tree National Park

Keys View is the only overlook in Joshua Tree National Park accessible by road. At an elevation of 5,185 feet, it is located on the crest of the Little San Bernardino Mountains and provides panoramic views of the Coachella Valley below. In this image, the Salton Sea is on the left (the closest point is more than 30 miles distant) while the Peak of Mt. San Jacinto (elevation 10,834 feet) is behind Palm Springs at the far right, also about 30 miles away.

This image is an HDR panorama made from 15 separate photographs. It is a panorama created using Lightroom software from five separate HDR images, each of which was made from three individual photographs taken with different exposures and merged using Aurora HDR 2019. (For an explanation of these techniques, please see the Definitions page.)

There is a smaller, accessible overlook in the Keys View area with a view to the south, toward the Salton Sea. In the Additional Images section below, there is a photo of the Salton Sea taken from this overlook.

In the valley north and west of Palm Springs (along I10) there are thousands of wind turbines generating electricity (I have read that there are more than 4000 – we didn’t count them). In the Additional Images section below, there is a photo looking west from Keys View that shows some of these wind turbines. The white structure near the right side of the image is the Morongo Resort & Spa (operated by the Morongo Band of Mission Indians), which is 35 miles distant.

When we were at Keys View, it was bitter cold and extremely windy – I had to brace myself against an interpretive sign to be able to take photographs. Having seen weather forecasters leaning into hurricane winds, I’m guessing the wind speed was at least 60 to 70 MPH. I have no idea what the wind chill was but we were under-dressed for those conditions.