Palm Springs - Coachella Valley Preserve

Last night the sunset looked like the mountain was on fire. I noticed as I was sitting outside reading and by the time I had retrieved my camera from inside, it was starting to fade.

Today I went for a hike at the Coachella Valley Preserve. As I was hiking alone I thought it best to go on a day that there were likely to be a lot of people around. The opposite of my usual preference. Because I didn't know exactly how far it was or what to expect I over prepared for what was actually a pretty short hike - I gassed up the car, sunscreened myself, packed water, an apple, a granola bar, my phone, my hat, my sketch book and pen and a hiking stick. All for what turned out to be, a 2.5 mile hike.
The preserve is North of Palm Springs, on the other side of the highway and driving out I went from the lush residential areas into the sparse desert and foothills in about 20 minutes. There is a little visitors centre at Thousand Palms Oasis where I got a trail map and was advised, as it was my first time, to take the McCallum Trail that went from one oasis to another, was well marked and travelled and had some information signage along the way.
The trail followed along one of the faults that contributes to the San Andreas fault. These faults create areas where water is forced up to the surface and lush vegetation grows around the seeps and ponds created.

Thousand Palm Oasis, start of the trail. These are California Fan Palms, native to California,
found all over the valley but they usually have their "skirts" trimmed to tidy them up in the
residential areas. These are left natural to provide habitat. The biggest ones are about 150 years old.

Wooden boardwalks are provided on the trail, over the ponds and marshy parts of the oases
but there is till running water over the trail at times.

This is a Creosote Bush, part of the sparse and scrubby vegetation in the desert area between
the two oases. These grow wherever the land is not yet developed in the Palm Springs area.

The trail goes through a desert "wash" where flash floods have created a dry river bed. This
area sustains slightly different vegetation.

Nearly at the McCallum Pond Oasis

This oasis had more open water though still an abundance of reeds and bull rushes.
There were picnic tables and some nice shady places to sit.

It was about 80 degrees today and I got to the Preserve at about 11:30, so was walking the trail in the heat of the day. It wasn't uncomfortable but I was glad to have the hat and the water. It was dramatic, how much cooler it was in the shade of the palms, next to the water, almost chilly.

An Ocotillo shrub. We saw these in the Joshua Tree Park, last year. They look like sticks until it
rains. Then they flower and leaf briefly before returning to their stick state until the next rain.

We haven't had any rain but this Ocotillo bush was starting to flower. I suppose it is
because it is early spring here and there is water seeping up from the fault line.

Returning to the Thousand Palms Oasis

The hike took about an hour and a quarter but I stopped frequently to take pictures and try and see the birds that I could hear.