On Victor Trail, Indian Canyons

A day spent at Indian Canyons. And what a day! We were awake early and by 7.00am I was across the road in Ralph's buying coffees and stuff for breakfast.

We enjoyed breakfast looking out at the rising sun bathe the slopes Mount San Jacinto which rear abruptly up from the flat landscape of Palm Springs.

By 9.00am we were in the canyons, walking up the Murray Trail to the trailhead at the Seven Sisters Waterfalls. A spectacular walk, 4 miles there and back, enlivened by the presence of a rattlesnake lying on the trail as we rounded a corner. Susan narrowly avoided treading on it as it made its way across the path.

The trailhead was a lovely place, very popular with many people going beyond the trailhead sign to the waterfalls. A couple of people were practicing Ti'a chi but finding it difficult as more and more people arrived.

From the Murray Canyon we made our way to Palm Canyon which started from the Trading Post. We had lunch first, watching hummingbirds flit to and from the feeders. Would love to post a shot for Laurie54 but can't upload any photos from the main camera without a computer.

Asked one of the Tribal Rangers about the best route and he described a hike along Palm Canyon, returning via the Victor trail, which we duly did, this shot being on the Victor trail.

These canyons, their perennial streams and palms are something else, very impressive. The canyons bear witness to past flash floods with banks of discarded fronds piled up along with great heaps of silt. The trees too, show scars of raging fires with all the dead fronds burned and the their bare trunks blackened.

The desert environment too is fascinating to a geographer; we teach about it but rarely visit deserts. Here, beyond the canyon oases is real, hard desert. Rocky, hot, windy and dry but at this time of the year, decked in colour as plants bloom in the cooler Spring conditions.

In places the landscape is lunar or Martian in its appearance, especially with the red rocks. It's only the presence of plants that give the game away. Vast rocky cliffs, weathering away in layers (known to us geographers as exfoliation or onion weathering owing to how the layers peal way like an layers of an onion), tumbled, jumbled slopes of scree and vast areas of dust, sand and coarser materials; the final product of the weathering processes.

And it was this dust that blew around during the afternoon as strengthening winds picked up the loose surface and blew it ferociously around us.

After completing the Palm Canyon hike we had one more short hike accompanied by the gusty winds and driving dust around the Andreas canyon. Just a mile up alongside another perennial stream and back along the top of the canyon sides. A short hike but a microcosm of all that was spectacular about Indian Canyons.

We covered over 9 miles in all, so enjoyed a shower, some nibbles and a glass of wine before going to Ruby's diner for dinner. An interesting experience and typically American I think. The offered "refillable" fries with all their meals. I think they were surprised when I asked for another portion!

Another memorable day. What will tomorrow bring?