Palm Springs Museum Trail

[neverwashasbeen]

I hiked up the Museum Trail yesterday with my daughter. Someone has been working on the trail, short cuts eliminated, carsonite posts with arrows, rock walls at the start. It now follows the original up/down/all around path fairly closely. It will be interesting to see how well it remains in this condition.

[hazmaan]

How many miles up the trail did you go?

[Florian]

Interesting. I wonder who is doing the work. I'll be at the museum tomorrow. Might pop up the trail a bit and take a look.

-Florian

[Norris]

Yes, I noticed the changes a couple of weeks ago but forgot to post about it. It's too bad they didn't take an opportunity to make the route more rational before doing all this work, the tendency of the trail to meander unnecessarily and to gain and then lose elevation unnecessarily is what motivates many of the shortcuts.

[ornamental]

All last month, I only saw one guy working the trail with a breaker bar, I mention to him that's a lot of work and I thanked him every morning that week. I have been spending some time giving back and working on the trail above 2500ft. and above to flat rock also. Just want to have clean trail lines and no trash.

[neverwashasbeen]

Hazmat, the Museum trail is only about 1 mile to the picnic tables J.us above at the trail junction is the Skyline, we only hiked the Museum trail.

Norris, the history of the trail is that it was an interpretive trail, that was designed by the Desert museum, before it became the Art museum. There was a very active natural science program back in the day. Thousands of local school children hiked up the trail on field trips and there was a brochure available for the public that had entries that corresponded to the letters painted on the rocks. Each entry was a description of some plant, rock, view etc. The trail was designed around the interpretive features, which is why it meanders so much.

Ornamental and all the others who work on the trail, thank you.

[Florian]

Did a quick hike up to the tables and back this morning. Nice to see the effort on the trail but i still hate it. So poorly designed and constructed. But it was a nice morning for a hike regardless.

-Florian

[Norris]

Norris, the history of the trail is that it was an interpretive trail, that was designed by the Desert museum, before it became the Art museum. There was a very active natural science program back in the day. Thousands of local school children hiked up the trail on field trips and there was a brochure available for the public that had entries that corresponded to the letters painted on the rocks. Each entry was a description of some plant, rock, view etc. The trail was designed around the interpretive features, which is why it meanders so much.

Ah! That explains it! Thanks for the history lesson

[ornamental]

2/23/16. 12 or so volunteers working on the museum trail up to the benches. I started on the trail today 11:30am and they were pounding away. I thanked each of them for working on the trail. It has its improvements and a few spots where if it rains it will wash out. But that's my opinion. They have been at it. First time I have seen that many people work on the lower part of the trail.

[cynthia23]

My understanding is that it is the Friends of the Desert Mountains who have been doing the work of restoring the trail, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart. NeverWas, I like your story of how the Desert Museum got built, but I think it's an urban legend, i.e. a story created imaginatively and collectively to explain something odd. Back in 2004 I interviewed the guy who actually built the Desert Museum trail (for an article I was going to write, and never got around to. ) The guy's last name was Vieth. He was one of two brothers. They were hired by the Desert Riders to build the trail. Virtually all the trails in this valley have been built by the DR, for the purpose of expanding their horseback riding options. (but, it's possible, in support of the "Natural Museum" theory, that the Desert Riders chose this spot to create a trail, because there already was a short existing trail that the Museum naturalists had started. If so, it seems very, very unlikely that it went up more than a hundred feet or so.) Vieth said he and his brother rode up and down on motorcycles while they were building the trail. Judging from what he told me, it sounded like there was a lot of beer involved. He was something of a character.

The 'loop' that goes up and then down fifty feet is annoying and seems senseless, but when you think about the topography there, it makes more sense. The big "shortcut" climbs very steeply straight up a face, whereas the real trail switchbacks slightly more gradually up the side of the ridge. It then has to go downhill a bit to get to a more switchbacky area--again, more to the side of the ridge rather than straight up. The general principle of hillside trail building is to create switchbacks, not to go straight up, because A) it prevents the trail from washing out and creating erosion and B) because people get tired going straight up, and fall going straight down. Switchbacks may seem annoying, but they are as crucial to the engineering of trails as foundations are to houses. You cannot have a lasting hillside trail without switchbacks. Sorry about that.

I'm begging Skyliners to respect the volunteer's hard physical labor and KEEP TO THE REAL TRAIL. Yes, I'm shouting, because I'm really fed up and angry at the brutal damage done to Skyline by silly egotists who seriously think anyone gives a flying duck in a rolling donut hole about their precious PRs and BKTs or whatever the cluck they're calling it now. NO ONE CARES. No, no one cares in the slightest whether you cut five minutes off your Skyline time by brutally damaging a bunch of plants struggling to grow in dry and eroded soil. Get over yourself shortcutters! I'm slow and I'm proud! There, I said it! If I can come out of the slowness closet, so can you! So stop the stupid shortcutting already!

The real heroes of this trail are not illogical nitwits who seriously think that cutting the trail somehow makes them studly, but people like the Friends of the Desert volunteers who spent sweaty hours painstakingly repairing all the damage the Ultra-Narcissists have wrought.

Ok, rant over. I feel much better now.