Coachella Valley Preserve

Tuesday night and what to do in Palm Springs? Well, I saw this beautiful photograph of a desert landscape at sunset on the cover of a hardbound tourism brochure on my hotel desk. It must be in Joshua Tree National Park, right? No. Coachella Valley Preserve. Where’s that? No one (including two convention concierges at the Palm Springs Convention Center who were available for consulting on local entertainment) knew where it was. A brief internet search showed it was just 10 miles outside of town. And it is free to visit. No wonder nobody knew about it. Those nutty conservationists evidently doesn’t grease any palms around town.

So after a full conference day I jet out towards highway 10. On my way out I call the preserve to check on the directions and make sure I get there straight. The preserve closes at dusk so I can’t afford to go bumbling around the desert. My directions are good but the lady who answers the phone says, ‘you aren’t planning on coming tonight? Because we’re closed’. Now it was at least an hour until sunset and so I’m thinking hmmm… either someone is anxious to get home or she’s probably just talking about the visitor center which I don’t really need to see. I mean visitor centers are just for goofy tourists right? I want to see the desert itself, not look at manufactured displays about what the desert looks like.

I drive through the preserve until I am close to one of the palm groves and there is a wide sandy shoulder to park on. One of the beautiful things about desert travel is that you can often hike cross-country without having to fight brush - there is often a great deal of bare ground. So I cross the road and head for the Palms, taking photos along the way. To get across some thick brush near a wash I do have to walk out of the way a bit to find an open crossing, possibly a game trail. So it takes a while, but man is it worth it. As I reach the grove I realize that there is a world of difference from seeing palm trees in an urban shopping mall parking lot and visiting a natural grove of palm trees.

First of all, the sound of desert wind blowing through the palms is both exotic and comforting at the same time. It begs you to close your eyes and just enjoy the sound, or picture you are in Hawaii? The Sahara? You choose. California Fan Palms in the wild have a lot of untrimmed dead branch material around the crown and the trunk. Along with the live leaves above, these shift in the wind making a sound a bit like the water in a stream.

The second thing I noticed was that there is tree litter everywhere, ivory dead leaves and chocolate fallen bark. The fact is the things you would probably rake up in your yard or have a landscaping crew clean up are just as beautiful as the standing trees. I spent a long time just looking at the color and texture of the leaves and bark on the sandy desert floor.

The bonus of going late on a week day was that I had the grove all to myself. I set up my camera for a few long exposures and just stretched out on the sand. I looked up into a sand dune about 10 feet high and noticed my lucky timing: evening primrose and sand verbena blooms. I had to try and get a shot of the wildflowers with the palms in the background. Unfortunately the same wind that made for a lush soundscape also meant it was just about impossible to get a shot of the wildflowers and palmtrees in focus without blur. I tried a few different things. I put the ISO at 400, the highest I can do without risking terrible image noise . I turned on the flash and put flash compensation at -1.5 stops to fill in the foreground and shorten the exposure time. I gave up on depth of field and just used a small enough aperture opening to keep the flowers in focus. I used the remote cable rather than the timer so I could take shots immediately when the wind let up.

Out of all that I got a couple of decent shots. I also took some photos of the palm trees with longer exposure times than usual just to capture the sense of wind and movement in the leaves. I was pleasantly surprised with the results. For some reason the effect of the motion blurring on the digital sensor was a little different than what I am used to on film but I liked it.

I stayed until sunset taking photos. I had spent all my time on the outskirts of the grove and on top of the dune. How about a different route back, walking down the dunes through the thick of the palm trees to experience the full force of the grove? I quickly noticed a fence with the back side of a sign facing me. Not good. I must have bumbled into the rear of a closed area. I head back on the trusted route from my trip in. After about 25 yards of walking I realized that the return to the car was not going to be so simple in the failing light. I pulled on my headlamp to make route finding easier. Of course using a headlamp or flashlight really helps for lighting the path just ahead but peripheral and distance sight get sacrificed.

Somehow along the way I find a better path than the one I came in on which seems like a good find until I happen on another barbed wire fence and the back side of a sign. So I take a lateral route hoping to circumvent the fence. But I keep coming up against fence. How on earth did I find a route in so easily with no fence but everywhere I turn on the way back is surrounded by barbed wire? I even turned away from the fence blocking my route to the road and came up against another fence as if I had walked into a yard. After a bit of stumbling around I realized it was now officially dark and besides being trapped I was probably no longer welcome on this private reserve.

I sat down for a minute just in time for an owl to make a stop about 15 feet above me and give me a good scolding. I really didn't want to crawl under the barbed wire so I got up to try another route. I finally came to the end of the barbed wire and loosened up into a jog heading towards the road, with my tripod held in front of me just in case. I immediately was picked up by an invisible wall and bounced back just like a scene I remember from one of Pam's old Clifford D. Simak's sci-fi books. Of course I had just imagined an opening in the barbed wire. The fence line just wasn't straight. Each one of my limbs stung a bit but other than that I was alright. After another 10 minutes of wandering I found a fencefree zone and returned to the car to assess the damage. I had scrapes on my right forearm, left hand, and left thigh from the barbs and a sort of dark circle in my right shin where either a strange blister-bruise had developed under the skin, or I had a hole that started clotting already. I am so glad I had to get tetanus and hepatitis shots for canal survey work.

On the way back to town I stopped at a drug store but was dissapointed to find they had no first aid kits or anything for a bruised ego. So I settled for Neosporin. I seem to learn everything the hard way. Maybe stopping in at the visitor center during office hours and finding out the lay of the land wouldn't be such a bad idea. I could have gotten a preserve map and found out where to (and not to) access the groves.

But that's the great thing about this blog. Not to say that you'd do the same foolish things that I do, but maybe you'll learn from some of my mistakes and be better prepared!