Tahquitz Canyon and the Palm Oases

Tucked into the mountains at the edge of town, these canyons are the ancestral heart of the Agua Caliente people, and they are astonishingly green. Fed by mountain streams, they hold the largest stands of native California fan palms on Earth. Palm Canyon is often called the world's largest fan palm oasis, a ribbon of towering palms winding for miles through bare rock.

For countless generations the Cahuilla lived here, growing crops such as corn, beans, and squash, and building rock lined irrigation ditches, some still visible today. Tahquitz Canyon, closest to downtown, holds a seasonal waterfall, along with ancient rock art and the remains of those irrigation systems. The canyon carries the name of a figure from Cahuilla tradition.

Tahquitz was a powerful shaman who, the stories say, turned harmful and made his home in these mountains. His spirit is said to linger in the rock, and the rumbles and crashes heard in the canyon are blamed on him moving about his stony home. The tribe protects these canyons today and opens them to visitors, who can hike among the palms and to the waterfall.

It is a rare chance to see the desert as the first people here knew it, not as a resort but as a living homeland with water, food, and shade in a hard land.