Camp at Hidden Valley in Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree National Park is known for its world class rock climbing, out of this world landscapes, and some of the darkest skies around. Having a base camp inside of the park is incredibly important as it's quite massive and I found that Hidden Valley Campground is strategically placed smack dab near the centre of the park. It's also extremely photogenic, as is the entire park, actually. Scouting throughout the day and finding potential spots to photograph can definitely save you time during the night, however it is not entirely necessary, as I found out. By simply strolling around the park at night, a seemingly endless amount of potential photographs appear as the stars do.

The Milky Way is quite visible and if you've never seen it then be prepared to be blown away. It can be brighter on certain nights, and be ready to stay awake longer than you wanted to as it crawls across the horizon with the Earth's rotation. The sun can produce a fair amount of light for a camera even up to an hour or two after sunset, but it can definitely be fun to play around with that.

You can never get enough photos of the Milky Way and so shoot away, until you either collapse of exhaustion or your batteries die out. Good luck and have fun!

For more information on Hidden Valley Campground and the other campgrounds in Joshua Tree, head to nps.gov.

Oh, and definitely watch out for rattlesnakes at night, yikes!