The story
The heart of the fan-palm grove along Palm Canyon Creek — the deep-shaded core of the oasis, and the place to understand how the Cahuilla have lived with these palms for millennia.
Back through the heart of the grove — and pointed uphill now, you get the view the postcards never show: looking UP the canyon, that solid green ribbon of fan palms threading the bare desert as far as you can see. This is the largest California fan-palm oasis in the world, well over a thousand trees rooted along this one crack in the earth. Listen — water trickling somewhere under the fronds, little birds working the crowns overhead. Ease your pace on the climb; you're better than halfway back to the top.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
