Palm Springs - The Goat Trails

Previously I thought this was part of the Art Smith trail, but apparently it's not. I've generally followed the geoladders route when I've been, but there are many variations you can make.

With school canceled for the rest of the week and the bad air quality from the fires, it was a perfect time to go down and ride the Art Smith Trail in Palm Springs again. I took the Kona this time. I figured it'd be more fun on the technical section in the last half mile. I can't say it was really worth it on the Kona though. It was over 90 degrees and those steep fireroad climbs got to me pretty quick today. The climbs are tough enough on my hardtail. Don't get me wrong, it was a blast coming down, but for the complete ride experience I think I'll stick to the hardtail for this ride from now on.

Regardless, it was still worth the drive down. If nothing else, I was able to breath clean air and get some exercise at the same time. I also brought the camera so I could get a few pics of the trail this time. Most of these are from the last 1/2 mile section of the ride.


Click on a picture to enlarge it.



Probably the most technical ............................ Nice little drop here. ..........................The last fun section of the ride.......
section of the trail.


This is up a little higher on the ride....................Lots of Rocks!..........................
Notice the steepness of the fireroad to
the left. Also notice the lack of shade.

Hurkey Creek

This past weekend we went to Hurkey Creek. It was everyone's first time camping there. Certainly not a bad place to camp. I had never realized how big of a campground it was, plus there's a whole other campground just a mile down the road at Hemet Lake. Be warned that the Hemet Lake Campground isn't nearly as nice, unless you just have to be near the water.











We did the usual "24 hour" loop. You can check out the full description here. It was pretty overcast, but the trail was in great shape. It had rained a few days before , so the trail was nice and packed.

Palm Springs

I've since been told these are the Goat Trails, although the geoladders route lists it as the Art Smith trail. For pictures you can go here - Goat Trails Pictures.

I finally rode the Art Smith trail in Palm Springs. I never realized how close it was to town. If you're familiar with Palm Springs at all it's not more than a mile or so from the airport. The trail starts right next to a Vons parking lot. This isn't a ride you'd really want to drive far to get to and you certainly wouldn't want to do it in the summer time - there's not a single tree on the whole ride.

I rode it yesterday on my way down to my parents house in La Quinta. It's essentially a very steep fireroad up, with lots of singletrack options coming down. I followed the geoladders route.

I imagine there's many, many other ways you could do this ride. The whole time going up, and coming down, you see all kinds of different singletrack trails that go in all directions. None of them seem to go on for too far, but when pieced together you get a really fun ride down.

The highlight of the ride was the last singletrack option just before the finish. This was the longest one I went on (about 1/2 a mile). It also was the most technical by far. It very much reminded me of Box Springs. I really wish I'd had my camera to get a few shots of some of the rocks and drops. I rode it all, and it was the kind of technical riding where I needed to take a couple of breaks to rest my forearms from all the ground they were absorbing.

If I didn't have a reason to go to this area, this is a ride I probably wouldn't do more than once a year. But now that I've discovered it, I'll keep coming back on a regular basis as long as my parents are still living in nearby.