Our winter break in the Palm Springs area seemed to lack spark this year as we settled in our Rancho Mirage basecamp. An unusual spike in temperatures drained the pleasure from our familiar pool of outdoor activities and intensified our voracious appetite for new experiences. The heat was also melting our Siberian husky, Kulu’s enthusiasm for hikes, bike runs and even neighborhood walks. Structured classes at Dream Dogs Training Center stoked Kulu’s and my mental focus. On the fun front, Sean and Enrique, the dog-loving owners of My Desert Dogs Day Care accepted Kulu with top wags after the playmates meet and greet. If Kulu was happy, my husband David and I were happy.
One morning we decided to beat the sizzle by driving one hour northeast to Yucca Valley to hike the dog friendly 4-mile Chaparrosa Spring Loop in the Wildlands Conservancy Preserve. The Pionner Mountains’ granite boulders setting and temperate 4,000-foot elevation breeze was a fresh dose of stimulation for the whole pack! We spent the afternoon in an 1880s time capsule exploring Pioneertown’s Mane Street National Register Historic District, browsing around the old west movie set, museum, artisan shops and the Pioneertown Motel. We popped our heads in Pappy & Harriet’s Palace, famous for barbecue and live music. I couldn’t believe Paul McCartney had performed here in 2016. Yucca Valley’s proximity to Joshua National Park attracts tourists, but the rugged outpost has been increasingly appealing as an escape from Hollywood glam. The Field Station Hotel’s minimalist Zen trademark and AutoCamp’s Airstream luxury glamping is tailored to a new “outdoor community” generation who value elevated creature comforts integrated into the rugged landscape. In contrast, the Yucca Valley airport’s Copper Room lounge and supper club celebrates Rat Pack retro glamour with classic cocktails in a vintage atmosphere.
Leaving Yucca Valley, a sign for the Save the Meow Meows Cat Lounge and Shop caught my attention. Moments later I was handing my $11 donation fee for the privilege of mingling with over a dozen felines. This brilliant nonprofit model helps socialize adoptable cats on their way to their furever home. Later in the week, I discovered the Palm Springs’ Cat Café. Claire and Sonny Von Cleveland’s business model aims at fostering community by blending a gourmet coffee shop with a cat adoption sanctuary in a certified neurodiverse workplace. Anyone is welcome to get their purring furry fix with a minimal entrance fee to the separate kitty salon.
Bicycling is David’s and my favorite mode for wandering around Palm Springs network of multi-use trails. The recently completed CV Link (Coachella Valley Link) expanded our range. The section along the Whitewater River Wash completes the visionary 40-mile “alternative transportation pathway” designed to link communities from Palm Springs to Coachella by foot, bicycle and low-speed EVs like golf carts. We sampled a section of the CV Link with a 20-mile loop and a refueling stop on Palm Springs’ Chicken Ranch’s bustling patio. We crowned our lunch with their famous velvety key lime pie.
The giant white spinning sentinels on the San Gorgonio Pass finally intrigued us enough to book space on a Palm Springs Windmill Tour. The guided tour began with an introductory film in a no frills office trailer before hopping in a golf cart with Bill, our eager guide and congenial retired horticulturist. Bill drove us around the outdoor museum and graveyard sprinkling information and pointing out details about each obsolete turbine. Braced by two mountain ranges, San Gorgonio is one of the most consistently windy stretches in the country. Staggering advances have reduced the number of turbines here from over 4,000 in the 1980s to around 1,000 much larger efficient turbines. Denmark is leading the pack in renewable energy with offshore turbine models boasting up to 500-foot long blades and a 1,000-foot rotator diameter. Interestingly, the optimum “blade pitch” on wind turbines remains the same as on traditional Dutch windmills. The tour ended at the base of a 400-foot tower, where we sat dwarfed in the sea of turbines listening to the soothing rhythmic swish of the blades.
Palm Springs rolls out an annual parade of events to highlight Modernism Week. Our pick this year was a film about Big Sur Architecture and a stroll back in time through the Vintage Market where there’s a treasure waiting for everyone.
Palm Springs may be synonymous with golf, but Indio is polo time. The “Sport of Kings” originated in Persia as a cavalry training game and later caught on with British officers in India before becoming a modern sporting spectacle. We spent an afternoon at the dog friendly El Dorado Polo Club for a Canada vs. USA match with both teams stacked with Argentinian players. We circulated between the General Tailgating fans and the VIP Cabana guests enjoying the pageantry and mesmerized by the polo ponies’ spirited athleticism.
Our quest for a new challenge took us on the Palm Springs Aerial Tram to the San Jacinto Peak trailhead at the tram’s Mountain Station. I boarded the largest rotating tram car in the world (80 pax) up 2.5 vertical miles with my eyes mostly glued to the floor while David snapped photos from all angles. It’s no surprise that the engineering challenge was labeled the “Eighth Wonder of the World” in the 1960s. In 10 minutes you trade Colorado desert cacti for pines and are 40 degrees cooler. Poles in hand and metal cleats on feet we hiked 12 breath-catching roundtrip miles mostly on ice and snowfields from 8,516 feet to the 10,834-foot peak, second highest in Southern California. The final hand over hand scramble to the summit, rewarded us with panoramic views of the desert and a stadium of mountain ranges. On the drive to pick up Kulu from his day care romp, we detoured to the Krispy Kreme donut shop. David’s eye roll into warm dough and sugar Nirvana reminded me that peak experiences come in many forms. I couldn’t rule out polo lessons as my next desert high.
Carmel’s Linda and David Mullally share their passion for travel, outdoor recreation and dogs through articles, hiking books and photography at Falcon.com.
