My wife and I like to travel to the Palm Springs area every year or so. It’s a wonderful area for great restaurants, golf and incredible views of the mountains that surround the desert valley. It is also a fun area to hike in the mountains and hills surrounding the valley or a drive up to hike in Joshua Tree National Park about 45 minutes away. In both places you can find short hikes that you can do in an hour or two or longer hikes that can take all day.
This past fall we spent one morning hiking in the hills surrounding Palm Desert where we were staying. We went up to the Randall Henderson Trailhead on Route 74 hoping to hike that trail but the visitor center and parking lot were closed (most likely due to Covid). Across the street there was a dirt parking lot and a trailhead for Dead Indian Canyon. It looked like about a mile or so out and back on the Alltrails app so we figured we’d give it a try. We were only on the trail a few minutes when we smelled something like a rotting carcass. It was right where the picture below was taken. We figured something had died close by and the smell went away a little further down the trail.
Once you get past the smelly part, the “trail” gets a lot harder to follow since it is just large expanses of sand dotted with desert shrubs and plants. The secret is to look for and follow the footsteps in the sand. We didn’t see anyone the entire hike, but this trail looked well traveled.
Once you get into the canyon, you are in shade in some spots, offering a nice desert hike when it is blazing hot.
There are lots of interesting desert plants along the way as you make yourself farther into the canyon.
Be on the lookout on the canyon walls for bighorn sheep. They are prevalent in this area. We didn’t see any rattlesnakes on the trail, but you should stay alert because they do like to lay out in the sunny spots. We did see some very large Antelope Jack rabbits, apparently the largest hare in North America. The are hilarious looking rabbits with giant ears.
- Source: Wikimedia Commons (www.public-domain-image.com/public-domain-images-pictures-free-stock-photos/fauna-animals-public-domain-images-pictures/bunny-rabbit-public-domain-images-pictures/black-tailed-jackrabbit-lepus-californicus.jpg)
Off in the distance in the photo below, you can see the destination of the hike. There is a small oasis of palms partially up the canyon wall.
As we got closer to the Oasis, it became a boulder hop or climb so we decided that seeing a grove of Palm trees up close wasn’t enough enticement to risk spraining or breaking an ankle or worse. So at this point we turned around and headed back.
So when we got back towards the beginning of the trail, we came across the awful smell again. It seemed to be worse around the bush in the foreground of the photo below.
I went home and googled this bush and it turns out to be a very smelly, poisonous, and hallucinogenic plant called Sacred Datura or Jimsen Weed. Good thing we didn’t pick the pretty flowers.
Hope you enjoyed my hike. The mountains and hills surrounding Palm Springs have countless trails into small canyons like this, many on Indian reservations and some on state or federal land. It’s worth an afternoon or morning for getting some exercise before you enjoy the great restaurants in the area.
