The original plan: Wednesday AM Ellen, Marilyn, and I arrange a car stagger by leaving a car at Palm Canyon trailhead on Hwy 74, and drive down to Palm Springs where someone (?) would take us to the Indian Canyons trailhead and let us leave our car somewhere nearby. Then, hike from Indian Canyons to Hwy 74 in 2days making camp somewhere in between.
Well, possibility of inaccessibility to Hwy 74 trailhead to leave a car due to snow screwed that up. Plan “B”: get someone to drop us off at Indian Canyons, hike to a nice campsite, and hike back out the way we came. Well, that someone turned out to be St. Florian, and he not only graciously dropped us off but accompanied us through the first leg of the trek.
After parting ways with Florian, who should catch up to us but Cameron! He accompanied us to Agua Bonita Spring and we had lunch there. Cameron pointed out that this would be a great place to pitch our tents. After lunching there, Cameron headed back home and we continued up trail for about 2 1/2 miles and went looking for Hidden Falls. We did some serious rock scrambling and bush-whacking and ascertained that “Hidden Falls” was truly hidden. Defeated, we retraced our tracks back to Agua Bonita Springs.
What a beautiful place to camp. There were places in the big rocks where Indians had ground their food overlooking the spring. We had dinner and partied a bit before snuggling into our sleeping bags under a full moon.
It was nippy the next morning as we had breakfast and packed up to head back down the trail to the Indian Trading Post. Florian came and gave us a ride back to our car.
Thank you, Florian, for the hitch, and thank you Cameron for showing us the best place to camp!
Thank you, ladies for a great adventure!
Miles of smiles,
Ellen
