All Stories from Deserts

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  Bell of the High Desert

  The payoff for the thigh-burning hike up Bell Mountain is a majestic view with a patriotic flair. Unfolding beneath you is a panorama of the San Bernardino and San Gabriel Mountain

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  A Rainbow Connection

  A place called Rainbow Basin Natural Area certainly suggests a glorious radiance of color, and this remarkable desert area north of Barstow doesn’t disappoint. A hike on Owl Canyon

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  Snaking Your Way Through Joshua Tree

  You don’t have to be a rock climber to enjoy this high-friction frolic in Joshua Tree. All it takes is a sense of adventure—a willingness to plunge into a dramatic canyon that’s de

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  Good Times in Anza-Borrego's Badlands

  Anza-Borrego’s badlands look forbidding, but anyone with a sense of adventure can dive in and explore V-shaped canyons, 100-foot-deep slots, and a vast maze of sandstone rock forma

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  Journey into the Chasm of Doom

  When you enter Joshua Tree’s Chasm of Doom, your fate is sealed. Your life becomes an experience of mystery, steep climbs, steeper drops, chimneying, and death-defying squeezes. Wh

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  Chutes and Ladders

  Just when you think you can’t go any farther in Painted Canyon, you remember why this route is called the Ladder Canyon Trail. Whew! There it is: a perfectly placed ladder that get

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  The Undead Ghost Town

  Every Halloween, the worlds of the living and the dead blur together. In the “living ghost town” of Randsburg, that condition is permanent. This strange gold-rush town near the El

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  Psychedelic Lava

  You’d be hard-pressed to find a volcanic landscape in California as memorable and psychedelic as Fossil Falls. This chasm of water-sculpted lava rock in the Coso Mountain Range nor

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  Planet of the Pinnacles

  The Trona Pinnacles have costarred as backdrop in sci-fi epics like Planet of the Apes and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, but seeing these tufa towers in person is far more jaw-d

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  Lykken Good!

  A hike followed by brunch? Always a good idea! Palm Springs’ go-to hike for gaining wild views and getting back to the city in time for brunch is North Lykken Trail.

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  It's a Waterfall Life

  Tahquitz Canyon’s crystalline stream and lush stands of desert lavender, honey mesquite, and leafy sycamores will change how you think about the desert. You might grumble at the $1

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  Murray Up!

  Palm Springs’ highest summit, Murray Hill, is unfairly named. It’s not a hill: It’s a pyramid-shaped peak poking into the sky above the Coachella Valley. And it’s a demanding 2,200

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  Sweet Valley High

  Sometimes you just need a fresh perspective. And getting up high to see things from a different view does the trick! At 3.6-miles (round-trip) the zigzagging Garstin Trail at the S

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  Coachella Kinda Day

  The Coachella Valley Preserve protects some 20,000 acres of wild desert, where the San Andreas Fault has worked as chief landscape architect. Seismic action forced freshwater sprin

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  Don’t Hurry Murray

  Don’t let the desert stereotype fool you: Palm Springs has a wet-and-wild side beyond hotel swimming pools. A 3.8-mile (round-trip) hike in Murray Canyon showcases Palm Springs as

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  Sand to Snow

  The Sand to Snow National Monument’s centerpiece is the 11,500-foot peak of Mount San Gorgonio (the highest in all of SoCal), but a hidden gem exists in the area’s 2,850-acre Whitewater Preserve.

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  Mojave Momentum

  The largest of Obama’s monument designations clocks in at a modest 1.6 million acres! Mojave Trails National Monument is home to a variety of desert destinations, including colorful canyons, striking mountain ranges, sand dunes, and even fossil beds containing 550-million-year-old trilobite remnants!

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  Storm the Castle

  Before President Obama channeled Teddy Roosevelt, the Mojave National Preserve was missing a key piece bordering Nevada in the northeast section of the park. This now conserved 21,000-acre parcel is protected and designated as the Castle Mountains National Monument after its namesake range.

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  Bottle Drive!

  The High Desert northeast of the San Gabriel Mountains may not have the same grandeur as desert regions like Joshua Tree and Death Valley, but with a little digging, its own quirky

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  Devils and Saints

  You wouldn't think of a devil and a saint existing side by side all that comfortably, but hey, it's California—almost anything goes here. Devil's Punchbowl Natural Area near Palmda

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