Indian Pass Indian Trail

February came and it was time to get out again. Roy informed me that after our stellar performance in Joshua Tree, we needed to do some desert exploring. I agreed, since I had a good compromise in mind. With the information that Roy had been "feeding" me regarding the area around Picacho Peak, I thought that we needed to make another visit and see some of the other points of interest in the area.

Charlene, my youngest daughter, joined us so we had another set of hands to help out with the cameras and chores. We started out our trip going more east, through the town of Glamis, than we normally do. I hadn't been this way before and had a whole new appreciation for the sand dunes that are named after Glamis. On the east side of the dunes we made our first stop, at a Pre Columbian Indian Trail. The trail consisted of a section of trail along side of the highway, with a fence along the edges of the trail for few hundred feet. It didn't seem all that impressive, but over the next several hours it would become much more so.

Marker along highway, The sign says:

PRE-COLUMBIAN INDIAN TRAIL

COLORADO RIVER TO LAKE COACHWILLA

(NOW IMPERIAL VALLEY)

ERECTED BY

IMPERIAL VALLEY PIONEERS ASSN.

1965

I've never heard of Lake Coachwilla before, so I'm guessing they're referring to ancient Lake Cahuilla. The obvious age of the trail was the most arresting aspect of the site, along with a section just past the fenced area where the trail went what is a small wash, which has a spot where it appears that water would collect after rains and would have been an important stopping point on the journey.

Location where trail crosses dry stream bed, shaded spot in middle is where water collects.

We then continued the drive to an area known as Indian Pass. I had read about this area in articles in the old Desert Magazine and when searching the area on Google Maps, had seen what I thought were trails visible in the satellite photos of the area. Sure enough, the trail was easy to spot and follow. We ended up hiking much farther than I expected, a couple of miles, until we lost the trail in the sandy washes.

Here we are returning from the wash where we lost the trail. From all appearances, most people don't walk anywhere near this far from the road.

Where the trail goes through the rocks with the heavy patina or desert varnish, the trail is visible on satellite maps.

We saw several mortars along the trail

Following the trail with the pass in the background

Where the trail entered the area of white rock, it wasn't visible on satellite photos, but was still easy to follow.

Charlene checking out some mortars or grinding holes

In the upper middle part of this photo, you can make out a faint circle where the larger rocks have been removed. Many think these circles may have been campsites.

More grinding holes

The peculiar scratches on the rocks in this area, have not been found anywhere else

The trail through the heavy patina covered rocks

More of the mysterious scratches

Of course, graffiti is found in modern flavors as well. This are modern petroglyphs. After seeing the "modern art", we continued east through the pass toward the Colorado River.

Soon we found ourselves at Picacho State Recreation Area. Here Roy is paying the day use fee.

We then went down to the water and had a little picnic. The river is pretty here and we recognize these cliffs from our climbs of Picacho Peak.

Looking up river from our picnic spot

As we drove along the river we checked out some of the side canyons. Roy is looking at the cliffs, making sure that we don't need to climb them.

Charlene is looking at the pools of water from the rains about a week earlier

We are stopped from going any further by this waterfall

Some of the roads we check out are not designed for the family sedan. Note the dirt being sprayed by the driver's side front tire.

While driving along the river we came across this memorial to a dog called Lonesome. It's located on a small hill with a nice view of the river. I wonder how long before erosion will take away this little hill?

We stopped at a boat-in campground. While it's designed for boaters, you can walk in to it also.

One of our last stops of the day was the state park campground and visitor center. Of course you wouldn't want to be a visitor here in the old miner's cemetery. We took a little hike and checked out some of the sights, including the marina and then as the sun was getting lower in the west, we headed out for our last stop of the day.

After a very interesting day we finally set up camp, under the cliffs of Picacho Peak.

Indian Trails

Hidden Palms and the La Quinta Fish Traps

Normally Roy and I go climbing on my weekends off, but Roy injured his wrist while saving a dog and can't climb. I won't go into details except, Roy swears he wasn't drinking at the time of the accident and that the dog would have been crushed to death if it weren't for his quick and agile maneuver to save the dog. Some day I'm afraid he's going to kill me by swerving off the road while avoiding some rodent. But I digress, since we're not climbing (of course Roy tells me to go without him - fat chance he's getting off that easy), we are exploring the local desert. Our destination for today was some old Indian trail near Thousand Palms. Roy has been researching and picked this hike from an old article describing the trail and a number of Indian sites along it. We conned Charlene and Klea into coming along.

Roy enjoying being our guide

The weather was predicting a 20 to 30 percent chance of rain, so we ignored the clouds. The wind and cold were more difficult to ignore, so we had to wear all the clothes we brought. The trailhead is the same one we use to go to Pushwalla, so we parked on Thousand Palms Road and start hiking. One of the first things we notice is that some trail work has been done since our last visit. The steps going up to the Bee Mesa have been repaired and replaced where needed. The hand rail has been upgraded as well. Of course it doesn't make the short but steep climb any easier and the youth of the girls is apparent as they romp up to the ridge and wait for us.

New steps and hand rails in place

The girls waving to us as we huff and puff our way up the short grade

As soon as we catch our breath, we notice what we are looking for, a pile of rocks. The Indians would make piles of rocks to mark their trails. According to the article Roy had researched, we should be finding about 50 of these piles of rock.

The first pile of rocks along the old Indian trail

Another feature that we were looking for were circles where the rocks had been cleared away, the author of the article said that he thought they might be camp sites. We spotted some features that may have been the circles, but off road vehicles had been through the site and created some new features along with some modern campsites, so it was hard to tell if we were looking at the sites described back in the early 1960s.

Partially cleared circle, tire tracks in the background

We continued along, following the faint trail across the desert landscape. We didn't see anymore piles of rock like the ones we saw at the top of the steps, but I thought that I saw some remnants of piles along the edge of the trail.

The faint trail across the rocky landscape

We did notice that in places the trail has connected to more modern trails, or at least sections of higher use. There are sections that are popular with equestrians and I wonder if the horses have knocked over some the rock piles. We did see some artwork out of rocks that was modern, so I didn't include it here. Soon we were looking down into the oasis. Unfortunately the ancient trail hasn't been maintained like the modern ones in the area, so we had to gingerly work our way down the steep slopes of the wash to get to the oasis.

Looking down into the oasis

Down in the oasis we hiked from one end to the other, I had no idea it was so large. I had to play the heavy and made Klea taste the wild dates. They don't have much flesh, but they are very similar in flavor to cultivated dates. It was obvious from all the scat that the coyotes like them too. All during this time, the weather was getting less and less pleasant. We headed back toward the car, using the regular trail this time.

Looking back at the oasis

Just minutes into the hike back to the car I started to feel drops of rain. They were few and far between, but they started to come faster and faster. The wind was picking up at the same time and the temperature seemed to be going lower and lower. We started hiking faster and faster but not fast enough and soon we were hiking in the rain. Fortunately it wasn't a heavy rain, but it was enough for us to want to get into car and go somewhere drier.

The weather is taking a turn for the worse

Hurrying back to the car

We made it back to the car before we got soaked and decided to head south and find someplace with less precipitation. After a short discussion, we decided on going to see the fish traps in La Quinta. I was the only one who had been there before, but during his research Roy had learned where the trail head was located, thank goodness, between the two of us we somehow managed to find the way.

Looking at the old shoreline up on the hillside

Once we had found the trailhead, we took off hiking. We slowly gained altitude as we walked on what had been the bottom of ancient Lake Cahuilla. As we neared the shoreline we could see the travertine on the rocks and shells in the dirt and sand. We hiked along the base of the hill until we came upon rows of rocks, rows upon rows of rocks. We saw that the Indians had constructed square to oval shaped pens that the fish could swim into when they were small. Because the traps were sheltered, food could grow that the small fish would eat until they became too large to escape and then the Indians would catch them and eat them. One interesting thing we noticed was that as the lake was drying up and the shoreline was receding, the Indians would just build new traps, leaving the old ones intact. Another peculiar thing was the fact that there were so many pottery shards in the traps. Many of the shards have finger tip impressions from the makers, I felt like I was truly touching the past as I felt them.

Fish traps

Pottery shards in the fish traps

After looking at the hundreds of fish traps in just one small area, we headed back to the car and some dessert, in the form of left over pies from Thanksgiving, someone had to eat it!

Some video of our adventures