Palm Springs‘ Desert Oases

The deserts around Palm Springs are to home to many canyons such as Palm Canyon which despite an arid desert environment contains palm groves and streams that help to sustain life here.

Streams from the melting snows of the San Bernidido Mountains watered the canyons here which were  carved out over millennia .

These canyons, their vegetation and streams supported local Indian tribes tor centuries , who harvested the land  for food , shelter and of course its precious water .

Palm Canyon  is named after the California fan palm which grows abundantly here .

It is home to the Agua Caliente people, a band of Cahuilla Indians who took advantage of abundant water supplies.  to grow crops for food and medicine and make baskets.These lands became 30,000 acre reservation for the Agua Calente back in 1877.

Nowadays it’s possible to hike  miles   of trails following Palm Canyon’s  streams and into the backcountry – visiting the sacred ancestral lands of this  desert’s original inhabitants .