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52 Hikes, Part 1: Covid-safe family hiking in Palm Springs

January 31, 2021

I hike a lot, but I tend to stick to the same trails. I’m sure there’s a metaphor there.

So I set a goal to hike 52 different trails this year. Part of that was to force myself out of my comfort zone, but I think it’s also necessary for Covid times. Even though I can’t travel far, I still want to explore, I want to have new experiences, and I need to feel like I’m having an adventure.

It’s important for me to cultivate that for my 6-year-old son as well.

At the same time, we want to be safe and maintain distance from others, which is an additional bonus of 52 different hikes. Although I ticked some popular hikes off my list this month, I think this will push me to find some lesser-known trails and ultimately explore my area without encountering a lot of people.

Here’s how we did in January:

A few things to keep in mind:
• These hikes are family-friendly, meaning they were good for my family, but these trails are not necessarily accessible for things like strollers.
• I’m strategic about when and where I hike. Some of the popular trails get a heavy amount of traffic throughout the day, and I don’t feel comfortable on narrow paths with people who might not be wearing masks. Those are the trails we hike at dawn.
• Don’t take my distance as gospel. Hiking with a 6-year-old child involves a fair amount of wandering, so your mileage might vary.
• In each case, I’d recommend checking a site like AllTrails for current trail conditions. I always look the map to get an idea of the terrain, and I read the most recent comments for any pertinent info.
• Please wear a mask when you encounter others on the trail.

Bighorn overlook, Rancho Mirage • 1.3 miles

We kicked off the new year with a quick hike to watch the sun rise over the valley.

There’s easy-peasy parking at City Hall, and the hike is a mild, half-mile jaunt up to the overlook, which connects to other trails.

Bogert Trail, Palm Springs • 1.8 miles

Bogert offers a pretty overlook of south Palm Springs and leads to junctions with several other trails. We opted to do this as a moderate loop, with the first half on the mountain, the rest on residential streets.

Randall Henderson Trail, Palm Desert • 2.8 miles

This one is a favorite, and we’ve been doing it since E was just a wee little guy, so I think it’s appropriate for many ages.

The trailhead begins at Friends of the Desert Mountains. The visitor center and parking lot were closed, but parking is available across the street or along the side of the road. (It is a very busy road, though. Be careful.)

Oswit Canyon, Palm Springs • 3.2 miles

I love Oswit Canyon, and I’m grateful to everyone who worked hard to save it from becoming a housing development.

This hike is particularly great during covid times, because there’s not one particular trail that takes you back into the canyon. Basically everything is a trail, so you can really maintain distance from other hikers.

It’s also a gradual climb (you don’t even realize you’ve gained elevation until you look back), and it feels like a real escape from the rest of the world. Bighorn sheep sightings are not uncommon.

Fish Traps Archeological Site, Thermal • 1 mile

This wasn’t much of a hike, but wow, was it cool. We found petroglyphs (and modern graffiti, sadly), shells, broken pottery, and best of all — hundreds of fish traps! Yes, in the desert.

Back when ancient Lake Cahuilla was here, the Cahuilla Indians crafted these ingenious stone traps to catch fish. You can learn all about that here.

Goat Trails, Palm Springs • 3.2 miles

These trails go on forever and branch off into multiple other trails, and I don’t even remember which path we took. Only that we reached an old horse corral that I’ve never seen before, and it was in the middle of nowhere.

This area is heavily trafficked, but the first section is wide. Then once the trail begins to branch off, it’s easy to maintain distance from others.

Earl Henderson Trail, Palm Springs • 2.3 miles

When I first moved to Palm Springs, I ran this trail multiple times a week. Unlike a lot of other trails here, it’s hilly; not a relentless, glute-killing climb. It’s also in the shadow of the mountain, so it remains cool on hot mornings.

Mission Creek to Stone House, Mission Creek Preserve • 3.6 miles

Mission Creek is a dreamy place, often overlooked in favor of other parks and preserves, and that’s fine with me. My son could spend hours tossing rocks into the creek, floating leaves in the water, falling off logs into the mud.

The main path will take you along the creek, next to desert wetlands that are popular with birdwatchers, and past historic structures to the Stone House. (Believe it or not, this used to be a dude ranch/resort.)

The trail near the Stone House links up with the Pacific Crest Trail, so you can pull a Cheryl Strayed and just keep going if you want.

Hidden Palm Oasis, Thousand Palms • 3.8 miles

This hike’s name is no joke. You’re walking along a bleached, somewhat barren landscape, then you head down a slope and SURPRISE! A hidden palm oasis. And it’s glorious too. Cool, breezy, a nice stop for a snack.

We’ve also seen a lot of horned lizards on this hike, and we love horned lizards for being the most metal of all creatures. Here, I’ll let you see for yourself.

McCallum Trail, Thousand Palms • 3.4 miles

This out-and-back trail at the Coachella Valley Preserve will take you to a large pond that is fed by underground springs (the result of seismic activity along the San Andreas Fault). Kind of. Right now the pond is closed due to desert pupfish reintroduction.

We continued beyond the pond toward Vista Point and Moon Country trails, then decided to save Moon Country for another day.

I always get a thrill at the beginning of this hike, which starts by the now-closed visitor center. An elevated wooden platform leads you through a marshy oasis with small ponds and shaggy palm trees. It looks and feels otherworldly, like Ewoks might hop out of the trees.

Bump and Grind, Palm Desert • 4.3 miles

This moderate trail is great for some serious exercise, but it’s also uncomfortably crowded. I once saw an entire bachelorette party on the trail — Mardi Gras beads, water bottles with penis straws, bridal veils and satin sashes, the whole bit.

We hiked this loop at dawn, and it still had too many hikers for my taste. On the plus side, this trail branches off into some other excellent Palm Desert trails, it offers a picturesque view of the town, and it’s easy to find and centrally located.

The top is closed every year from February 1 to April 30 for Bighorn sheep lambing season. We lucked out and made this hike on Jan. 31, so we were able to do the full loop. My son struggled around the 1-mile mark, but we took it slow and made frequent stops until we made it.

I believe the body is made of stories

July 19, 2020

I went camping with my son recently, which was an opportunity to sit by the fire and indulge in that great outdoor tradition.

Not s’mores. Campfire stories.

I rifled through the file cabinet in my brain and pulled out every ghost story I remembered from Girl Scouts, from the girl with the green ribbon to … something about an alien who is standing on a toilet with a booger on his finger chanting, “I got you where I want you, and now I’m gonna eat you!”

No, I don’t know why it was an alien.

One interesting and occasionally brutal thing about my son, though, is that he tells me exactly how a story resonates within him. Like, within his body.

“That was so funny, mom, I felt it all the way up here,” he’ll say, drawing an imaginary line from his toes to his mouth.

“You scared me to here,” he’ll say, motioning to his hip. Then he’ll put his hand next to his chin. “Next time see if you can scare me to here.”

A couple of my tall tales were so bad, they didn’t even rank. “That story fell on the ground. I didn’t even feel it,” he said. “It didn’t touch me.”

It’s strange to be edited in real time by my own 6-year-old child, yes. But his feedback made me fiercer in my telling. I went bolder and weirder and wilder, all for the sake of garnering a reaction.

The body is more than 60% water, which is why music, chanting, and sound therapies have such an impact on how we feel. They change the vibration within us. (Think: That glass of water in Jurassic Park when the T. rex approaches the car, only you’re the cup of water.)

But I also like to believe on some level we’re made up of stories — at least 60%, if not more. So I can’t help but thrill at how my child receives a narrative and considers it a full-body experience. The stories are in his heart, up to his neck, even pooling on the ground around him.

When is the last time you felt a story?

42 things I’ve learned

August 6, 2018

I recently celebrated a birthday, and it’s weird. Even though I’m officially middle-aged, I still feel like I’m arriving late to my own life. There are so many things I wanted to have accomplished by now and places I imagined I’d be. At the very least, I thought I’d be the benevolent but firm dictator of a tiny country.

So I’m still trying to catch up, but I did figure out some stuff along the way. Here are 42 of them:

1. Creating a network, whether it’s professional or more personal, is a matter of quality over quantity.

2. Floss every day.

3. You will smoke like you are invincible, because that’s how young people smoke. It is something you are successful at: puffing, dragging, clicking and flipping a Zippo, lighting cigarettes in the wind. And when you quit, you will miss it. So just don’t start.

4. If you work best in the mornings, stop trying to be a night owl. And vice versa.

5. People who dance at parties almost always have more fun than people who don’t.

6. Wear what makes you feel good.

7. But not jumpsuits.

8. Imposter syndrome is a real beast. The only way to fight through is to “fake it ’til you make it,” which is a cliché, but it’s a cliché for a reason.

9. If given a choice in a public restroom, never use the first stall (it’s overused) or the last stall (where people hide to poop). Go middle stall or go home.

10. There’s no shame in making money or asking for what you’re worth.

11. Put something beautiful and something strange on every page. That’s writing advice from Megan Mayhew Bergman, but it easily expands to become something more like a lifestyle. Be purposeful in finding something beautiful and something strange in each day.

12. You had that one friend who split dinner checks down to the penny. (Everyone had that friend. Emphasis on the had part.) Don’t be that person.

13. Stop apologizing for what you want, for the space you take up, for living your life, for what you enjoy, for what you know to be true. You are not sorry. There’s nothing sorry about you.

14. You cannot understand the place you come from until you leave it.

15. Try everything. At least one bite.

16. You’ll never heal in the same environment that made you sick. (I either read this in a tweet or on a teabag. Either way, it’s true.)

17. Take your ego out of the equation.

18. But maintain a tiny bit of ego. You’re great.

19. Push yourself until it’s impossible to turn back and there’s no other option but to move forward. (This lesson comes courtesy of day three on your four-day hike to Machu Picchu.)

20. There is no better bean than a chickpea.

21. If you have the opportunity to be selfless, take it. Remember that extending care to others is really a form of caring for yourself.

22. Comfort kills creativity.

23. Walk until you find the answer. Author Jenny Offill rattled off the Greek phrase for this, which you can’t remember and can’t find with any amount of Googling, but anyway that’s not the point. The point is to take a hike whenever you can’t figure something out, and keep walking until the solution surfaces.

24. Self-consciousness wastes valuable energy that could be better used for dancing.

25. Say yes more often.

26. Own your mistakes. Like, if you’re in spin class and your shoelace gets tangled with the pedal and you fall off the bike, it’s better to throw your hands in the air and pretend you just did a fancy dismount than to slink away in shame. NOT THAT IT’S EVER HAPPENED TO YOU.

27. Treat everyone you meet like it’s their birthday.

28. A few things to carry because you’ll never know when you’ll need them: A packet of tissues, chewable Pepto tablets, plastic bags. If you’re traveling, also bring a wedge-shaped door stopper, a whistle, and a flat rubber sink stopper.

29. Follow your curiosity. It will drive you to weird places.

30. Indulge the weird.

31. Set fair, realistic goals. And when I say “fair,” I mean fair to yourself. You’re probably never going to be a champion surfer. But you could take a surf class.

32. Take notes.

33. Let go of your expectations. They inevitably lead to disappointment. That’s not to say you should minimize your hope or anticipation — those are great things to have. But whenever you expect a location or an event or a person to be something epic, something soul-shattering, it can’t possibly live up to the hype. Kind of like prom. Prom is built up to be the most magical moment of a young person’s life, and it actually kind of sucks.

34. Vote in every election.

35. Just take the leap. Back when you were a skydiver, only one part of the jump frightened you — getting out of the aircraft. You had to play mental games with yourself and pretend you were Angelina Jolie’s stunt double, that kind of thing. But once you were in the air, you relaxed into it and let the sky hold you up, which is the most glorious feeling in the world. So do whatever it takes to get out of the plane. You’ll be happy you did.

36. Nobody cares how your thighs look.

37. Decisions made purely out of fear only lead to more chaos and upheaval.

38. Almost nothing is meant to last forever. Not material goods, not relationships, not a perfect trip. Let things go before holding on to them suffocates you.

39. Have a map. Literally and figuratively. You’re guilty of wandering around until you get yourself lost, which is fine — sometimes it’s actually the best. But often things would have been easier if you’d have just carried a map. This goes beyond travel and into your personal and professional life, where your wise, knowledgable friends would be happy to help guide you.

40. Whenever you feel the most frightened, you’re on the brink of something amazing.

41. Every scary thing prepares you for the next scary thing.

42. There is more good in the world than bad. This is the absolute truth.

This vacation I will wear white

June 12, 2018

My life as a backpacker was a lot of things. Exhilarating. Challenging. Sometimes lonely.

But not clean.

I was a very dirty backpacker — like, actual filth — and not by choice.

Basic hygiene can be hard to come by when you’re sleeping on overnight buses, bus station benches, or saggy mattresses in moldy hostels. It’s even more difficult if you visit some of the places where I traveled, where water was precious.

I became a master of the bucket bath, which involves the same kind of bucket you’d use to build a sandcastle at the beach, plus just enough water to fill that bucket, and a small ladle or measuring cup. Here’s how it works: Dump a cup of water over your body, soap yourself, then rinse with another cup of water.

It's like a day at the spa, if that day were portioned out one cup at a time.

It’s like a day at the spa, if that day was portioned out one cup at a time.

Some towns were simply out of water, so bathing wasn’t an option at all. By the time I arrived in Villa Tunari, Bolivia, the town hadn’t had flowing water for weeks. In Arba Minch, Ethiopia, the townspeople said they hoped to see water any day. Two days later, I looked like Pigpen in a Peanuts strip and lost all hope.

When showers were available, they often weren’t comfortable. Some were cold enough that my lips turned purple and my body shook; others were so hot I thought my skin would blister.

Laundry became the height of luxury. About once a month I brought my dirty clothes to a real laundromat, but in between I rinsed my clothes in sinks. As I dunked, soaked, and swirled the fabric, the water turned a murky brown, like making mud tea.

If you travel slow enough, you take on a bit of each place you visit, and the things I wore were proof.

Sink laundry in Luang Prabang.

I didn’t really envy the tourists I encountered — the ones who stepped out of air conditioned vehicles, took selfies and trotted through museum tours before they were whisked to another location — but I admired how they looked.

They were crisp. They were clean. I bet they smelled nice. They wore WHITE.

My clothes were dingy, dark tees and khaki hiking pants, clothes designed to camouflage grime as I absorbed the world. But those tourists were confident in their fuck-it-all white. They moved through the world as though nothing could soil them, as though there was laundry service waiting for them at the end of each day (because … well, there was).

Sometimes they even wore linen, which is a fabric I just don’t understand. Some people can pull it off. Me? I look like a crumpled Kleenex.

White clothing is something I always notice when I look at travel photos now, and I say that as someone who stalks a lot of travel accounts on Instagram. More than a magnificent hotel backdrop or a gorgeous cocktail hoisted in the air, a white shirt screams opulence. You’ve achieved a level of travel luxury that I never have.

Fine. You guys are enjoying your champers and a hilarious joke at a hotel. I’ll let these white clothes pass.

But you. How are you not covered in dirt?

Gurrrl. You are about to get dusty.

But wait. All of this is about to change.

This summer I’m taking another journey. I’ve worked very hard and saved to be able to take my son to Southeast Asia.

When I traveled through Thailand and Cambodia before as a solo backpacker, I daydreamed about what it would be like to make that same trip as a mother. I was curious how it would shift the dynamic when I met people, how they would respond to me as a mom, how my child would respond to them. So it’s not an exaggeration to say this is a trip I dreamt about long before I ever gave birth.

I’m going to bring my son to the elephant sanctuary where I volunteered. I’m going to show him how to kneel and pray in the temples that made me weep. I’m going to give him bowls of slurpy noodles and let monkeys jump on his head. We are going to get filthy.

This time around I’ve budgeted enough to pay for laundry service as we go. And you can bet the first thing I’m packing is a crisp, white shirt. (And a white dress. And a white bikini.) I want to travel in white just this once, to have a taste of something I’ve never had before.

But not linen. Screw linen.

2017 in summary

December 31, 2017

The world's cutest toddler, running along a beach

My focus word for 2017 was “abundance,” and I spent all year trying my darnedest to cultivate that.

And failing. I failed so hard, you guys. My failures were abundant.

Financially, it was one of my driest years since I started freelancing. There were long and seemingly endless spans of time where nothing was accepted or published, even though I wrote, pitched, queried, and followed up obsessively. At one point I read an article that advised writers to aim for 100 rejections per year, and I cackled like a mad woman in a Brontë novel — I was hitting about 100 rejections (or non-responses) per month.

It was depressing. It felt like I was trying to climb a mountain, and even though I was doing my part, I couldn’t quite get there. I researched the trail, I showed up in hiking boots, I carried all the right gear, I had the motivation and desire to put in the work. Then mere steps from the top, I toppled for whatever reason, forcing me to start all over again.

Just when I considered calling it quits, I attended the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop in magical Granada, Spain. It helped recharge my batteries on just about every level, from inspiring me to write new things and look at my work in a different way to satisfying my itchy feet and proving I can still travel solo.

Soon after, I placed some of my favorite pieces, like this essay for LitHub about Silent Book Club, a piece about wildflowers and making my own roots in the desert for Palm Springs Life (the online version is a little wonky with some repeated paragraphs, but you can see it here anyway), and a funny/sad essay about a rat for Mutha Magazine.

I also started hosting a radio show about books with Tod Goldberg. I received an acceptance from an outlet that has been on my byline bucket list for decades. I registered for the Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop, because I want to find my way toward humor writing again. I read 51 books.

Other good things happened: A road trip to Vegas, a quick jaunt to Portland, a terrific visit with my sister. I reconnected with old friends and made some new ones. As a family, Jason, Everest, and I slept in a tipi under the stars in Pioneertown, hiked through a couple of Canada’s spectacular national parks, and explored Vancouver, now one of our favorite cities.

Also Everest turned 3, and he has grown into someone I genuinely love to hang out with. He’s funny and weird and makes me laugh until I wheeze. We have dance parties, take silly selfies, and haven’t found a trail yet that we don’t want to explore.

In November Everest and I hiked 30 miles together, and most of those were quiet morning jaunts, clambering over rocks, scraping up knees, and listening to birdsong. I cherish every one of those miles.

Now we’re ending on a high note. We just finished a family road trip that was just about as perfect as those things get. We started by seeing the Yayoi Kusama exhibit at The Broad in Los Angeles, and stayed the night in Solvang, a quirky Danish-themed town. Then we spent a few easy days at Morro Bay, listening to seals bark, running on the beach, and sipping hot cocoa as the sun sank.

Our last morning in Morro Bay is a memory that I hope lasts, as it seems to sum up the whole year for me. It’s Everest, barreling down the pastel beach, gathering sand dollars by the handful. He carries them to me, holds these urchins to his chest, makes careful piles of them. He tosses some into the ocean; the rest he tucks into the pockets of my old college sweatshirt.

This is abundance. My pockets hang heavy with sand and salt and shells, and my heart is so full it’s buoyant. I am sand dollar rich, and I have all the things that matter.

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52 Hikes, Part 1: Covid-safe family hiking in Palm Springs

I believe the body is made of stories

This vacation I will wear white

2017 in summary

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