The Wild

Call of the Wild

Armed with a camera and a .38 revolver, Susie Keef Smith and her cousin, Lula Mae Graves, set out in the 1920s to document the desert outback.

Ann Japenga Current PSL, History

Armed with a camera and a .38 revolver, Susie Keef Smith and her cousin, Lula Mae Graves, set out in the 1920s to document the desert outback.

The New Landscape of Conservation

A plan to protect the Coachella Valley’s natural environment amid a growing population is all about balance

Ann Japenga Attractions

The Chino Canyon cone — the giant boulder field at the base of the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway – is a peaceful area now thanks to Friends of Palm Springs Mountains.

Scaling New Heights

The Cactus to Clouds Hike: An undesignated, grueling, 10,000-foot ascent up Mount San Jacinto

Ann Japenga Hiking

The Cactus to Clouds Trail — a highly social, grueling, and somewhat underground Palm Springs experience, is adored by fitness freaks, CrossFit and boot camp trainees, and even Marines.

Keeping it Wild

Four years after the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, the Coachella Valley continues to protect its pristine land for future generations.

Ann Japenga Hiking

When Esquire or The New York Times list features that make Palm Springs sexy and cool, they routinely omit one important item: “Wilderness Boundary.”

Bohemian Rhapsody

Ann Japenga Real Estate

On the outskirts of Palm Springs, boasting one of the best mountain views in America, Snow Creek draws artists and eccentrics who must continually protect the village.

Land of Plenty

The vast farmlands of the Coachella Valley pack economic muscle — and a beautiful attractive for residents and visitors

Ann Japenga

Morning in the east valley is a sight to stir the weariest traveler. Yet most visitors miss the pageant, as do locals.

Where Artists Thrived

Follow the trail to discover the views that inspired the desert’s pioneers of creativity

Ann Japenga Arts & Entertainment

Some of California’s greatest artists once lived in the Coachella Valley. More and more, art lovers are recognizing the power their former homes and environs hold in telling the story of American art.

Greetings from Cahuillaland

A new, err, old way to look at the mountains, coves, and dunes from the San Gorgonio Pass to the Salton Sea.

Ann Japenga Hotels & Resorts, Real Estate, Sports

Leave behind modern Palm Springs and enter the lost world of Cahuillaland. Here, the rocks have names, and tricksters and shapeshifters dart around you. A kind of power — one anthropologist calls it “electricity” — abounds in objects we think of as inanimate.

An Insider’s Guide to the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument

Ann Japenga Hiking

In the 12 years since the Santa Rosa & San Jacinto Mountains National Monument was founded, technology has tightened its grip on us all. Scientists say many of us can no longer see the flash of a bighorn sheep’s rump, hear the peep of a towhee, or count the receding ridges of the Santa Rosas — not because the rump, towhee, and ridges aren’t there, but because we can no longer perceive them. Tiny screens have stolen our senses. The 280,000 acres of monument just outside Palm Springs is the perfect place to reclaim them.

Palm Springs on the Hudson

Painting some of the earliest views of the desert, Lockwood de Forest was relentless capturing the subtleties of light

Ann Japenga Arts & Entertainment

After absorbing de Forest’s paintings, your eye naturally travels to the desert’s open places, looking not for impressive landmarks, but for the beauty of absence and the nothingness the painter sought.