Palm Springs - #1

It's About The Outdoors

Looks like desert through and through, doesn't it. Look closer.

Up close there is an amazing green carpet that looks nothing like desert. Gated by Mount San Jacinto at left and San Gorgornio Mountain to the right, those mountains screen the rain. In just those few miles that separate those peaks, a transition occurs. From the Mediterranean climate of the greater LA basin to the beginning of a series of deserts that stretches all across the Southwest. 

What the Coachella Valley (the area that encompasses Palm Springs and a dozen other desert communities) does have is access to Colorado River and a large aquifer 1,200' beneath the valley. Domestic water comes from the aquifer and the Colorado provides the irrigation for both garden and agriculture.

Incredibly, water in the desert is plentiful enough for ornamentation use.

Ample water allows for the existence of over 200 golf courses in the Valley. Climb out of the valley into the Chocolate Mountains in the background and you can see that water doesn't reach there.

"S" is for sunshine - on average there are over 354 days of it.

This is a bit of a side note but when I was a younger visitor, this was then one of the top of the line restaurants in the area - The Chart House. The owners moved on and took the name. A number of other operators attempted to run the restaurant but not with the same success. In 2012 the restaurant caught fire. Now it is in limbo and investigators are looking into an insurance fraud angle. One of my son-in-laws gave it an apt name - The Char House.