Hiking Through Tahquitz Canyon

Wednesday was Paulette’s Quilting day at the clubhouse, so shortly after she left at 10am, I got the muttzo’s settled down in the 5’er and took off to do something that I’ve always wanted to do here in Palm Springs and that’s check out the local Indian Canyons – I picked Tahquitz Canyon to try first.

Tahquitz Falls sits at the top of a 2 mile loop trail with a 350 ft. elevation

From downtown Palm Springs, you can actually walk to Tahquitz Canyon, but I drove up to the parking lot instead.  After hiking through the desert in sandals at Thousand Palms, I went prepared this time wearing my hiking boots – it was much easier on my poor old feet!

The trail follows the Tahquitz Creek up to the falls and back on the opposite bank

The Tahquitz Canyon Trail is a two mile looping hike which leads to Tahquitz Falls and back.  From the Visitor Centre to the falls, the trail gains 350 ft. in elevation.  The trail is steep and rocky and is definitely not suitable for handicapped persons.  There are many rock stairs, as well as other obstacles, which make it impassable for a scooter type vehicle.

Another view of the 60 ft. high Tahquitz Falls

I didn’t find the going all that difficult as the trail was in good shape and even the rock stairs and bridges were easy to navigate.  There are regular tours with a guide but I opted to take the hike myself as I don’t care for being herded along and listening to all the yakking. 

There were lots of little caves like this one amongst all the rocks and boulders

This canyon was totally different from other places I have visited here in Palm Springs.  First, there were absolutely no Palm Trees, none!  That was really odd.  Lot’s of interesting rock formations though and the hike followed the Tahquitz creek all the way to the falls, where I crossed the creek on stepping stones and then hiked back down the other side of the creek back to the Visitor Centre.

The trail had a lot of these types of stone steps to climb

All in all, the hike took me 2 hours from start to finish and I only stopped whenever I wanted to take pictures.  Along the way, I ran across 2 guided tours of about 10 people each, but there were many more people opting to hike the trail by themselves as I did.

One of the small Tahquitz Creek waterfalls

By the time I got back to the RV Park it was 2pm and Paulette was still at her quilting club.  I let the muttzo’s loose and sat outside with them until Paulette got home at 3pm.  After a quick trip to the pool to relax and soak in the Jacuzzi, we took Molly and Rylie to the dog park, came home, read a bit, had dinner and just relaxed for the evening.

Have a great Thursday, and thanks again for visiting!