The Path to Chino Canyon

A trip to Palm Springs Aerial Tramway begins and ends with a ride through a ‘geological pageant’

Ann Japenga Hiking

A few hundred thousand people a year chug up the steep road through Chino Canyon, sniffing the air as their engines start to overheat. Probably none of those thousands knows this place.

Far Santa Rosas

The hunt for Black Rabbit turns up a surprising challenge.

Ann Japenga Hiking

Some places in the Santa Rosa & San Jacinto Mountains National Monument beckon you with meadows and mossy boulders. Other places — such as the far Santa Rosas — say “Stay Out.”

Into The Wild

Ann Japenga Hiking

Cradling the desert valley, the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto mountains hold a rich history, a bright future, and awesome experiences for those who hike their trails

Focus on the Past

Ann Japenga

The work of early desert photographers offers a pictorial history of the desert before the resort lifestyle made it the land of luxury.

Going for Shipshape

Riverside County plans to restore the long-abandoned North Shore Yacht Club

Ann Japenga

At the old North Shore Yacht Club on the Salton Sea, broken aluminum siding bangs ominously in the wind while pigeons fly in and out through the holes in the building. Apocalyptic graffiti — “Many lose the search for home” — ornaments the abandoned pool. Yet, despite the appearance of hopelessness, this classic symbol of The Wasteland might again become an emblem of hope and prosperity — as was originally intended by its creator, modernist architect Albert Frey.

Mission: Mud House

Coachella Valley Museum surveys the area’s adobe structures

Ann Japenga Arts & Entertainment

The Coachella Valley once was dotted with hundreds of adobe houses, but most have washed away, collapsed, or been bulldozed. In recent months, some classics were slated for demolition. But economy-wary developers allow us a last chance to see these structural gems.

A Legend Undone

The Coachella Valley lays claim to an iconic Western tale, a saga so exceptional it has been called “the last great manhunt of the West.”

Ann Japenga Arts & Entertainment

The Coachella Valley lays claim to an iconic Western tale, a saga so exceptional it has been called “the last great manhunt of the West.” The athletic antihero, an Indian named Willie Boy, outran a mounted posse of white men over 500 miles of boulder-strewn mountains and bajadas on the fringes of the valley in 1909.

Zest for the West

Art collectors find passion for works evoking a sense of wilder days

Ann Japenga History

Like hippies migrating to Woodstock, artists from all over the nation flocked here from the early 1900s to the 1950s. They feverishly painted canyons and palm trees, leaving behind an entire body, a history, of art.