Palm Springs, CA - Carey's Castle

There are a scintillion trails around Palm Springs since the valley is ringed by mountains. In the 5 years that we have spent time here, we’ve done quite a few of them but I’m always looking for new ones: though we sometimes rehike a favorite trail, we like to spice it up a bit with new trails. Several days ago, and I can’t remember how, I came across some mention of a ‘secret trail’ called Carey’s Castle. Oh, boy, a secret trail. So I checked the internet and found lots of descriptions of it. Well, as my brother asked, why is it called ‘secret’ if it is all over the internet. Good question. In fact some of the trail descriptions include GPS coordinates, both of the trail and the trailhead, terrain maps, and, of course, there is the old tried and true Google maps where you can drill down and actually see where the trail might be. It is actually on many USGS topo maps. How secret is this trail anyway?

The most likely reason why it is called ‘secret’ is that the Joshua Tree NP rangers try to keep it low key to vandals out since there the site is still very much as Carey left it with his house, his possessions and his mine mostly undisturbed. Secondly, there is no ‘trail’, just a wash slog alternating with boulder scramble through bracken and weeds. Finally, there might or might not be cairns since people knock them down to keep the trail a ‘secret.’ Some also put cairns in the wrong place to mislead others. I also found that most hikers who find the castle will not give a full description of their trail either. They’ll give little bits and pieces of the trail but not all. They say things like: ‘take the Chiriaco Exit ‘and then not tell you which direction. They’ll say ‘follow the foot prints’ but many footprints go the wrong way. However, persistence pays off and we had some of the coordinates, had looked at Google to confirm these and had a pretty good idea where we wanted to go.

But, we could follow the footprints - and tire prints? But, the vehicle could go only so far.

Did all this prevent us from starting up the wrong wash? Nope, but after scrambling for about 20 minutes through very sharp rocks and through really pointy bushes, I decided that I wasn’t going to like 4 miles of this and we decided to try the next right hand turn. Bingo, this it the right wash, now we’re cooking.

This trail was not the easiest. First it was a wash slog through dry sand. It was like walking on the beach, you just can’t get a purchase with your planted foot to push off for your next step. And, was I ever getting bits of sand and small rocks in my boots. We did find a few cairns but this one was a bit difficult to see.

Much of the trail was through this wash with lots of boulders strewn throughout. Then there was this:

Known as a ‘dry falls’ it is a huge pile of boulders and rocks that you’ve got to get over. This trail had several of these boulder scrambles. Finding the trail through this is every man for himself. At the bottom, looking up at this mish mash of boulders, It’s hard to imagine more wash slogging on the other side of this boulder pile - all you can see are more boulders piled on top. But, sure enough, there is more wash slog just over the last boulder - you’ve just got to get to that last boulder.

We kept climbing up the wash and over the boulders until we could see that we were close to the tops of the mountains, and then I looked to the right and saw - rusted old 50-gallon drums strewn around the desert. We’re here, we’ve found it. Sure enough, just a bit further and we saw the boulder under which he had built his home.

But, wait a minute - first you’re probably wondering, who is this Carey (or Cary as he is sometimes known). Well, even if you’re not wondering, I’ve got some information on him here. It’s amazing how many abandoned mines and old shacks and other rusting structures are littered throughout the desert Southwest attesting to previous searches for treasures and solitude. There must be thousands of these and we’ve seen many as we’ve hiked through the hills and mountains in this area. We’ll be walking along a trail and look to the mountains side to see tailings or an old boarded up hole in the rock wall or the remains of an old squatters cabin. Carey’s Castle is different in that so much of what he left remains intact.

The Carey of Carey’s Castle was born Arthur Loyd Carey (Cary) in Bogue, KS on July 189, 1914. He married, moved around but finally found himself in this area. He was involved in the filings for claims in 4 separate mines in the 1930’s sometimes alone, sometimes with his father-in-law and sometimes with others. This claim was filed under the name ‘Welcome Stranger’ in 1938. (I didn’t do the original research for this information but found it online) Now, note that he probably doesn’t fit your vision of an old prospector, if you do the math here, you’ll realize that he was only 24 years old when he filed this claim.

Now, back to his home and mine. Here’s his home with a window, a front door on hinges and rocks cemented in to seal it off. Note the bench on the left and the patio on the right.

Interestingly we found a car bumper (no car attached) sitting on a 50-gallon drum outside the house. (It is thought that Carey got to his claim using an old, now closed road, from the top of the canyon.)

Inside the approximately 10’ x 15’ space, we saw his folding metal bed with the rusted springs, some rusted jerry cans used to carry supplies, his pantry with cans still here,

his windows for ventilation, an old wash tub, a vent for what must have been his stove, and

Pretty nice for a cabin up in the hills miles from civilization.

We saw this Budweiser can with a pop top. Not Carey’s of course since pop tops didn’t come along until the 1970’s. Besides the can isn’t as rusted as the rest of the cans and 50-gallon drums are. Who put this here?

We also hiked up to his mine which was about a block away. The park service had put a solid metal grate over it so no one could fall in or get hurt climbing in. Carey had a 10’ ladder down to a lower section with another 10’ ladder in it.

Now that we’ve hiked the trail and see Carey’s house, we can appreciate what all he has done to make this claim into a home for himself. But, then look at this view out his front door.

Our hike back went much more smoothly than our hike in since we didn’t have to check our trail at every canyon and, besides, we had gravity on our side going down. At the bottom as we were driving back to the interstate, we passed by some old tanks by the Patton Museum. Ghostly on the desert floor.

9.5  1600'