Granite boulders and summer clouds

Tall white cumulus clouds build over a long pile of rounded granite boulders, with Joshua trees scattered across the dry ground below. It is the classic Joshua Tree landscape in full daylight, a few miles from where every certificate is printed.

Those smooth, stacked boulders are the reason the park looks the way it does. How they formed, and why they are rounded instead of sharp, is written up with sources on the desert geology page.