Hidden Valley and Barker Dam are the two classic short walks on Park Boulevard, each about an hour. The Hidden Valley trail is a 1-mile loop with stairs and rock steps at both ends, and the Barker Dam trail is a 1.1-mile loop to a dam built in 1900, whose reservoir is usually dry. Intersection Rock, the most climbed rock in the park, stands across the crossroads, and its lot holds the emergency phone. The Hidden Valley and Barker Dam lots can close when full, so early arrival helps. Keys Ranch is open only on ranger-led tours booked in advance. A Boone tale plays for listeners who park at Hidden Valley or Intersection Rock.
In about a quarter mile, Barker Dam Road goes right. About two hundred yards past it, at one crossroads, Hidden Valley is on your left and Intersection Rock on your right. Right in means right out, left in means left out. If you've parked here at Hidden Valley or Intersection Rock, Boone has a tale, about three minutes. Going on to Barker Dam, you'll miss it, so wait for it here. Hidden Valley is fifty acres walled in by granite, with its ways in hidden from casual view. The loop is one mile, about an hour, with stairs and rock steps at both ends, and vault toilets but no water at the lot. Start by nine on busy days, because these lots can close when full. Intersection Rock is the most climbed rock in the park, with over forty routes, so even if you never lace up a boot, stop and watch for a while. Barker Dam is a one point one mile loop, also about an hour. The basin is usually dry, and it fills only after heavy rain, when it can pull in waterfowl headed for the Salton Sea. Go for the dam itself. In nineteen hundred, a cattleman named C. O. Barker built it nine feet high, and it took sixteen trips, eight days each, to haul the cement and forms from Banning. Bill Keys later raised it to twelve feet. The Barker Dam trail also holds the one rock art site this tour will send you to. View it from the signs, and don't climb on the boulder or touch it, because the art may be on any part of the rock. Disney Studios pecked and painted over one rock image near the dam in the nineteen sixties, for a film called Chico the Misunderstood Coyote. The park's own record says the studio quote improved unquote the petroglyph. It was damage. Keys Ranch is reached only on a ranger-led tour, booked ahead, and going in on your own can bring an arrest or a fine. The one thing to keep in your head is this. An emergency phone is on the north side of the bathroom in the Intersection Rock lot, and it's the only one on this drive.
Photo: NPS Photo / Camille Horn · Public domain