Don't Die Today: Your Guide to Surviving Joshua Tree National Park (Virtual Class)

In Joshua Tree National Park, your safety is your responsibility — consider this class your survival guide. Learn how to #HikeSmart in this virtual class, which covers the 10 essentials to bring and the basics of recognizing and responding to heat illness, injuries, and getting lost in the park.

• This lecture-style class is held via Zoom and offers closed captions. 

• Anyone may attend! No expertise is required.

• This class is recorded. Participants are not required to be on camera. Registered participants will receive the slides and recording following the class.

Activity level: This is an introductory-level online course.

Required items for participants: 

• Paper and pencil for note-taking

•  Must have access to Zoom

We will provide the Zoom link one week before the class start date.

Your instructor: Sarah Witt is a grassroots educator, artist, and chef who values an exploratory, hands-on approach to how we perceive and interact with the world around us. Sarah moved to the high desert in 2016, and her natural curiosity about the environment sparked several projects that brought people together to explore our relationship to the land through botany, food, and hiking. In collaboration with the nonprofit High Desert Test Sites, Sarah founded the monthly community wild-plant dinner and discussion event High Desert Test Kitchen, which later generated Hole in the Sand, her immersive platform for informal desert educational events focused around plant-identification hikes, overnight desert backpacking trips, and seasonal pop-up dinners.

Photo credit: NPS/Lian Law