Last week, M and I went for a hike in Palm Canyon, the largest of five canyons (Andreas, Chino, Murray, and Tahquitz are the other four) that make up Indian Canyons, a park located a few miles south of Palm Springs, California. The park is privately owned and sits on the homeland of the Agua Caliente Indians.

Admission to the park is expensive ($8 per person), but we managed to save a dollar per ticket by purchasing them ahead of time at the Palm Springs Visitor Center, located on the edge of town.

Due to a late start and heavy traffic, we arrived at the park shortly after noon, which gave us less than five hours to explore. The park is open daily from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. We overheard other visitors mentioning that park rangers were extremely diligent about having vehicles towed, so we knew we would have to keep our hike short to ensure we returned to the parking lot before closing time.

The plan was to do a loop along the East Fork, East Fork Loop, Vandeventer, and Fern Canyon Trails. According to the trail guide, it would be an easy seven-mile hike with a couple of short strenuous sections. As usual, the trail guide and reality didn't quite align and as the hike progressed, the plan would require a serious revision.

It started innocently enough. From the visitor center, it looked as though we would be taking a casual stroll beneath a canopy of palm trees.

For a short distance, it was a casual stroll beneath a canopy of palm trees.

Along the way, we passed impressive rock formations...

and the peaceful Palm Canyon Creek.

The first mile of trail was too busy for my liking, but once we were beyond the junction where the Palm Canyon, East Fork, Vandeventer, and Victor Trails met, the flow of people dried up. As it happened, the view from the junction was the highlight of the hike.

Past the junction, the trail followed the dry creek bed. Rock walls between 10 and 15 feet rose up on either side of us.

We would pass long stretches without seeing a single palm tree and suddenly encounter a bend where the palms seemed to come charging down the slopes.

The trail had a slight uphill grade and followed a gentle serpentine course. Everything was going smoothly until we hit a wall -- a literal wall.

After scaling it (not in the fashion shown above), we began to encounter periodic tight spots (also known as waterfalls when the creek is flowing).

According to the map in the trail guide, three miles of hiking should have brought us to the East Fork Loop Trail. At our normal pace, we can cover that distance in just over an hour. With the exception of our brief stops to scamper over walls and squeeze through crevices, we had maintained that pace. Yet, after more than two hours of hiking along the creek bed, we never reached the East Fork Loop Trail.

Instead, the trail kept going. I began to doubt the accuracy of the map's scale. While I wanted to press on and find the trail junction, common sense took note of the falling temperature and setting sun. Upon encountering another wall, we decided it would be wise to turn around and return to the parking lot.

It's my suspicion that we were very close to reaching the East Fork Loop Trail. My internal optimist says the junction was just around the next bend. My internal pessimist insists there would have been a fifty-foot sheer wall between us and the next bend.

Despite straying from the original plan, hiking through Palm Canyon was enjoyable. The oasis of palm trees in the middle of the desert was an amazing sight. Indian Canyons might be worth another visit someday, at least to see what the other canyons have to offer. More likely, though, if we're ever in the vicinity of Palm Springs, we'll probably continue driving east and visit Joshua Tree National Park.

You can see a few more images from the hike on Flickr.