Hey, a new hike today - through the Indian Palm Canyons. The canyons with its trails are part of the lands owned by the Aqua Caliente Cahuilla (pronounced Kaw-we-ah) tribe living now where their ancestors settled centuries ago. They built homes, grew crops of melons, squash, beans and corn, they built dams and dikes to manage the abundant water supply and they developed their civilization here. They thought they could always live here but in 1876 the US Government deeded only 32,000 acres to them. Then, the US Government also deeded the Southern California Railroad 10 miles of odd sections of land to induce it to build a railroad. If you look at the map of this area today, you’ll see a checkerboard of ownership, although the government recently traded sections so that land sections would be more contiguous and less checkerboard.
Today the tribe still owns lands within the city borders of Palm Springs with some of the most beautiful canyons around. These canyons drain both the San Jacinto and the Santa Rosa Mountains and have an almost continual source of water which is conducive to the growth of the California Fan Palm. OK, that’s the introduction to the area through which we hiked today, beginning in the lower canyon weaving through the trunks of the hundreds of palms growing here climbing to the canyon rim where the rocky mountain slopes and desert take over. It’s the contrast between the intimacy and lushness of the lower canyon and the expansiveness of the desert plateaus above that spell magic in this hike.
We awoke at our usual 7:00, ate and were on our way. It was a bit of a drive and we got to the toll booth where we paid our fare and got our trail map from the woman there. We asked if it was really true that the gates closed at 5:00 and that we had to be out of the park by then. ‘Yes’, she said and added, ‘you should have gotten here earlier if you wanted to do a longer hike.’ I guess. Then she’ ground it in a bit more when she continued, ‘That’s what happens in the winter, people come here wanting to do a long hike and the weather is nice but they don’t realize that the sun goes down behind the mountains earlier. You’ve got to be out by 5:00 or we charge you $50.’ OK, OK, I’ve got it, you don’t have to say it again.
We drove into the trailhead and started our hike about 9:45 and dropped right down into the palm tree grove. About a mile into the hike we met two women coming towards us. ‘Don’t go any further, there isn’t anything to see beyond this,’ one said. Yeah, the trail ends a little ways beyond here,’ said the other. Actually, our maps showed lots of trails beyond this point and who says that there’s nothing to see. Palms aren’t the only thing to see around here. We chatted a bit but then we continued on to the trail junction. Here, we goofed. We saw one trail heading straight up - nope that’s not the trail we want, ah - there’s the one off to the left. And, we were off.
The trail was a combination of wash slog and boulders and then we came up against several 10’ dry falls. None too tall and without rocks nicely ‘placed’ for foot holds for us to get over. But enough for a neat change in the trail. Luckily, Gary had a hand to help me up over some of these.
Look at the rock layers in this cliffside.
And the colors of this rock.
As we walked this trail and noticed that we were winding around a lot compared to the trail on the map which was straight, we wondered why our trail was so much more winding that the trail on the map. 2 miles later, we saw a sign post ahead in the middle of the trail and read the two trails that crossed at this point. Hmm, neither one was the trail we were supposed to be on. We checked our map and noted that the two trails on the sign were about 2 miles away from where we thought we should be. Oops. Not only did we have a deadline but we had lost the trail we wanted to do. Double trouble.
We turned right to get back to the trail we wanted and followed that to a nice lunch spot along the trail. Now it’s 12:30 and we have a choice: continue with the original plan or head back so we won’t be late and be charged $50. We started with ‘Let’s go a bit further’, then it was ‘let’s go a little more’, followed by ‘how about some more?’ And, soon we were closer to our original turn around point so we continued on. Believe me, we were really hoofing it around this part of the trail. But we took time to catch the 360 degree views.
The first picture captures the San Jacinto Mountains looming over the desert plateau. The second, later in the afternoon, captures bits of Los Angeles smog rolling in over the mountains.
Fortunately, this part of the trail was really neat: it was on a high plateau with expansive views in every direction: to the Santa Rosas looming over the horizon in the south, to the San Jacintos thrusting up from the desert floor on the north, to good old Murray Hill on the east. 360 degree views. As the Who said:
I can see for miles and miles
I can see for miles and miles
I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles
and miles and miles and miles and miles
Marvelous. We found our original turnaround spot, the junction with another trail which headed back to the trailhead and - got there about 3:15. (I think Gary's trying to hold me up here.)
I guess we didn’t have to hike as fast as we did. Who knew? Here are some palm trees outlines against the sky.
We drank a soda, chatted with some people we had met on the trail (who hiked into the Grand Canyon and out - all in one day and who also hiked the trail from Palm Springs to the tram, 8000’ and 11 miles - WOW!) and watched the humming birds flitting around. You can’t see the wings of the hummer on the right, they are flapping so fast.
Home, dinner and relaxing and watching the sun as it went down behind the mountains.
Although, I like this view too.
10.98 1600’
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