In the summer Megan and I had a week of phenomenal hiking at Rock Creek in the eastern Sierra. Here we have more than a week of winter hiking mostly near Palm Springs. Amazingly given all the hiking I’ve done around Palm Springs all but two of these routes were new to me.
I’ll start with a map though not everything’s on it. This is the area south of the center of Palm Springs including Murray Hill and what’s commonly called the “Indian Canyons”.
From the map I’ll start with the red line — Murray Hill, the most popular of any in this post. I did it one afternoon and liked it so much that I came back one morning with Ferda, Zoë, and Boreth and took them on the same walk in the opposite direction.
Calling Murray Hill a “hill” reminds me of the Cardamon “Hills” rising over 2600m above the sea in Kerala. The Indians can do that ’cause they have the 8000m Himalaya. By the same reasoning, with Jacinto Peak rising over 3000m above the Coachella Valley, Murray Hill is just a hill — 600m above the trailhead!
We started at the Palm Canyon Epic Lower Trailhead did a loop (actually a lollipop, but the stick is short). Don’t miss the somewhat hidden palm oasis at about 220m in the drainage that heads down to Canyon Plaza road.
Here’s the view from the summit of Murray Hill looking SE,
and here’s the view looking SW. Take note of the dark pyramid sticking up behind the first ridge in the center of the photo… because that’s where we’re going next. 🙂 That’s unnamed 2085ft. ~1km to NNW is unnamed 2055ft, also (less visible) in the photo. Confusingly on OpenTopoMap, which is what I use on my phone, they’re both unnamed 610m.
For unnamed 2085ft Boreth, Ferda, and I (we lost Zoë 🙁) got a ride to a trailhead at about 220m at the end of Foothill Road in Cathedral City. We mostly walked WSW, eventually arriving at the palm grove near the trading post in Palm Canyon about 5½ hours later. This turned out to be a beautiful day (orange line on the map). It was a holiday, but until we got near the parking lot at the end, we saw only one other person.
The off-trail spur to the summit was steep with lots barrel cactus.
Fantastic summit.
We walked down via a nice palm oasis in Fern Canyon. Supposedly there are ferns around, but we missed them.
Then we had a nice bighorn sheep sighting in the large palm oasis in Palm Canyon.
That wasn’t my first time ending a hike at the Palm Canyon trading post. Like last time hitchhiking was easy.
Before Zoë left, Boreth organized a hike to unnamed 2829ft (about 1km or so south of the legend on the map; I don’t have a track). These seem to be the only photos I have.
The very next day the same group of four of us walked up to Maynard Mine (purple line on the map).
Dang, we keep finding nice views. Zoë flew to Anchorage. Boreth, Ferda, and I drove one morning to Tahquitz Canyon. It was only the three of us with Chris on the 8am guided tour. He did a good job. We learned about medicinal uses of some desert plants, a bit about the canal that used to deliver water from Tahquitz Canyon to downtown Palm Springs, and about Robert “Mountain Bob” Hepburn who used to live off the land somewhere up Tahquitz Canyon before becoming the first ranger to guide tourists to the waterfall like Chris has been doing for 10 years now. Boreth was familiar with the story.
The waterfall isn’t much to see, and the hike is short and easy, but Chris made it interesting. Looking at our map again, Tahquitz Falls is barely on the edge of the map to the north of the right side of the legend.
It was still early, and we had a car so we drove over to the Araby rock houses. I’ve been curious about these stone houses for years. Turns out they’re completely on private property. The closest we could get is this photo (the path/road in the foreground is off limits):
We also got a view from above. They’re the small houses at the very bottom of the photo, perhaps 8-10 structures.
We ended up walking up Cahuilla Peak (blue line on the map) and got some views of the Bob Hope house along the way. It’s now owned by Ron Burkle, the same guy who owns the Frank Lloyd Wright Ennis House in Los Feliz. I guess he buys these unusual homes and restores and maintains them.
Another enjoyable desert walk though it’s looking less deserty than usual this day — guess it rained.
The Agua Caliente Band of the Cahuilla Indians administers both Tahquitz Canyon and Palm Canyon. They own land in downtown Palm Springs and throughout the Coachella Valley and recently opened the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum which Ferda and I visited for the first time. There’s a nice building, plaza, and grounds. But for a 600 member tribe with holdings of at least US$2.5b (over $4m in assets/citizen), I guess I expected more from the museum. There’s a creation myth story, a bit about the natural environment of the canyons, and the bitter (and sadly familiar) history that started with the arrival of Europeans.
The only photo I have is of Ferda walking toward the entrance.
Palm Springs is a fun place to spend a little time.
Ferda and I drove north one day to Desert Hot Springs to the Cabot Museum where Cabot Yerxa built a Hopi pueblo style house with scavenged materials. He had quite the life — grew up with Native Americans in the Dakota Territory, learned Spanish in Cuba, and moved to Nome during the gold rush to sell cigars. There he learned and wrote down the local Native American language, eventually selling his notes to the Smithsonian. He founded Desert Hot Springs after finding both hot and cold water springs here.
Since we drove all the way out here, Megan recommended we visit (nearby?) Whitewater Preserve operated by Wildlands Conservancy. They’ve done a great job with the Sand to Snow Monument and work to get kids out in nature by operating preserves like this one with picnic areas, campgrounds, and walking trails.
Ferda and I did a casual 6km walk with views of both San Gorgonio and San Jacinto. We’re starting a bit higher here — 700m — but it was still shorts and t-shirt weather in January.
See San Gorgonio?
Turn around. See San Jacinto? Both have snow.
Bye bye, desert. We’ll be back.
Beautiful!