The turnaround deep in Palm Canyon — where the oasis stretches on up the canyon and the trail heads back. The tour's quiet finale.
This is a good place to turn around — you've walked a mile or so into the canyon, and the palm oasis stretches on ahead of you for miles, all the way up toward the mountains, far beyond where we'll go today; the full canyon runs some fifteen miles up into the San Jacintos, a great green thread of palms following the water the whole way. But you've seen the heart of it, and this is a lovely, quiet spot to sit on a rock by the creek a while before we head back.
Sit, and take it in. The water. The shade. The huge old palms, some of them close to two hundred years old, that have stood right here through everything. And carry back out with you the one thing that matters most about this place: that it lives, and is loved, and is protected — not as a museum piece of some vanished people, but as the sacred, tended, present-day home of the Agua Caliente Cahuilla, who gated this canyon over a hundred years ago precisely so they could keep it, and keep caring for it, on their own terms. And here you are, welcomed in as their guest.
When you're ready, head back up the trail the way you came — and save a little breath for the climb back up to the Trading Post; it's short but steep. On behalf of Ranger Boone Merrick and myself, thank you for walking Palm Canyon with us — for the fan palms and the creek, the deep history and the living nation that holds it. If you enjoyed the walk, we'd be grateful for a review, and grateful more still if you carry a little of this respect with you. Tread gently on the way out. This has been Ranger Quinn — thank you for being a good guest in a sacred place.
Photo: Martin Haeusler · CC BY-SA 3.0
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