Tahquitz Canyon Hike

Ever since moving to the Coachella Valley, I’ve heard about this hike. On the short side and easy to moderate difficulty. One mile in, one mile out and only 351 elevation change.

When we were close to the waterfall the landscape changed from chaparral to trees. This is one of my favorite nature shots from the hike.

The pay off is at the end. A 50ft water fall!  One that never dries up…from what I had heard. WRONG. Its dry right now. 😦

On the way out, some fellow hikers said the last time they hiked this trail (4 years ago), the water was deep enough to jump into and swim in!  We may go back in early spring to see if run off from the mountains bring the water fall back into its full glory.

Its still a great day hike to take if you’re in the Palm Springs area. Very close to downtown Palm Springs, Tahquitz Canyon is a must see. There are points of interest mapped out on a guide they give you with admission. Yes, there’s a fee to get in as it is located on part of the Agua Caliente Reservation.

There are points of interest along the way to the waterfall, rich in history and legend to their culture.

Anyone have any idea what plant/flower this is?? 

 

My partner and I had a great time – you will too!

 

Tour de Coachella Valley Geocaching Event

I’ve been to geocaching events before – usually meet and greets or holiday affairs, even ‘flash mobs’. But, I’ve never participating in a competitive event. That is, until a couple of weekends ago.

A local bunch of cachers organized and put on “Tour de Coachella Valley” and placed many new caches as well as picking favorites for those of us participating. Teams were made of 2-5 people riding in one car around the valley hunting these hides. We met at 8AM in Palm Desert’s Civic Center Park and ended at 1PM at a pizza parlour in Palm Springs. Festivities there lasted until 3PM.

It was a fun, yet crazy day. I was paired with a couple of ‘snowbirds’ out of British Columbia named “Pouncers”. They bickered a lot, which made me think of my parents, but otherwise were very entertaining. I tell you, they love to make illegal U-turns, left turns and jay walked. Me…I closed my eyes and went along for the ride!

Our hosts had a total of 28 geocaches for us to find, which was designed to be impossible to achieve by the 1PM deadline. My team did pretty good – found 22! In every hide that was large enough, they had tokens with points on them. At the end of the day, the team with the most points won a prize basket. There also were additional points if you were FTF (First To Find) a brand new hide.

As a side contest, one of us from each team wore a wristband and had to have photos taken of us at specific locations near the geocache hides. I was elected from my team and ended up being awarded with the most silly/crazy photo of the day and was given a geocoin.

 

The winning photo – I call it Dew Drop Dead – a play on words from the name of the cache nearby and my antics in the road.

All in all a fun day and I really added to my ‘found’ amount of caches!

 

We’re on a path to nowhere…

Today I grabbed what is probably last chance before the summer heat of the desert hits, to go on a hike on the valley floor. A few weekends ago while attending a CITO Geocaching event nearby, I discovered the 1000 Palm Oasis Preserve in the Coachella Valley Preserve System. They have some great trails branching out from the visitor center, but today I stuck to the easy  2.4 miler named the McCallum Pond Trail. It starts near the visitor center, winds through the oasis before exiting across the desert floor and eventually to the pond. The pond is created by a seep from one of many fault lines of the San Andreas fault system.

The path near water almost always has a bridge over it. Otherwise it would make for quite a soggy hike.

They have some nice docents present to fill you in on the history of the region and also how the area became part of the Coachella Valley Preserve system.  My partner Tami and I had a nice chat with a docent this morning.  Check out their website:  http://coachellavalleypreserve.org/   The visitor center will be closed from June 1st through ‘Awful’ August 31, but the trails and picnic areas remain open year round. (August earns that nickname…seriously. The average summer temps in the area hover around 118…August can be…worse. Much worse.)

OH, obligatory self ‘derp’ shot …

I look forward to the return of cooler months so I can explore the longer, more strenuous trails in the area.

PS – Still waiting on artwork for Book 3 of Revenant of Silverthran. I’ll let you know when its released!