I first read about the Palm Canyon Epic a few months after I moved to SoCal. Descriptions included hard to navigate, all-day beatdown, rugged, remote, and were followed with all sorts of warnings about the spare parts and provisions to bring along. Most riders had heard of it back then but not so many had ridden it. Fast forward 12 years and there is a shuttle service that'll take any e-biker or endur-bro with a fanny pack to the top. Strava tards brag about shredding it in 3 hours. Maybe that is possible now that the cactus gets trimmed back, rocky sections have been sanitized and turns straight-lined. It used to be a raw backcountry trail but has been smoothed top to bottom by thousands of tires over the years. It's still one of my favorite rides but I don't consider it to be an "epic" ride anymore. I've ridden every combination of trails in the area, including riding PCE starting 3,000ft higher atop Santa Rosa Mtn. Some of these rides are very tough but it's pretty hard to get over 35-40 miles. The one variation I've never tried is to climb up from Palm Springs and then ride the full PCE. I know people who've done it, and this weekend I decided to give it a go before temps get too hot.
My original plan was to do the ride Saturday, but I wasn't able to get away Friday night so I moved it back to Sunday. Temps would be a few degrees warmer with high of 87* so I decided to start even earlier. I got in a hike and some sightseeing on the way out on Saturday, and then grabbed a campsite Saturday night. I crawled out of my sleeping bag at 4am to get down to the start for 5. Finally rolled away from the truck at 5:15 in darkness, perfect temps, and total silence.
First sign of dawn came as I climbed my way up the Goat trails
Had a snack and put lights away at the top of Wildhorse ridge. Watched the sun come up, surprised there were no hikers up here for sunrise.
Instead it was just me and the flowers. Lots of flowers.
My options were to climb up Dunn Rd, climb up Hahn Buena Vista trail, or traverse further and climb 3 miles of sand wash. I chose the trail.
I met the only rider I'd see all day at the bottom of Hahn. Hahn is a bit loose but pretty much all ridable and is not a bad climb at all.
Looking over at upper Dunn Road, which I will be climbing next
Top of Hahn, and still no one else around. Thought I might run into some shuttlers by now.
First big pear blossom cactus bloom of the season
The old tractor at Mike's desert oasis. Stopped here and ate half my breakfast burrito
I've climbed Dunn Road below the oasis but never above it. As expected, it was little used, washed out in spots, steep in places, and generally a slog.
Views were great though. Looking down on the sand wash that riders climb doing the standard PCE route. It seems flat but climbs 1100ft in about 3.5 miles
What really made this ride awesome was the flowers. There weren't any massive, thick blooms like some places have seen. It was just flowers of all kinds peppered everywhere.
Collected a couple mylar balloons as well.
After what seemed like forever I got to the first high point on Dunn Rd. Unfortunately from here I would drop down hundreds of feet only to climb back up hundreds more.
The road got very rough here. It was all ridable going down, but climbing it in either direction will be hike a bike.
Hmm... end of the road? I pushed past the rockfall and found a singletrack on the other side, which was a nice change even if it required hiking.
The singletrack was only 1/3mi long before it dumped me on a maintained section of Dunn Rd. below some houses.
Looking back from where I came.
I found another singletrack that looked like it might bypass the whole neighborhood, but that was too optimistic as the trail meandered around and eventually petered out. I never did see what happened to the fresh bike tracks on it, all of a sudden they were gone. I ended up going cross-country to the nearest road. This was easy enough and pretty soon I was ordering a mexi-coke at the re-opened Sugarloaf Cafe on Hwy 74. I headed over to the campground I'd stayed at the night before to eat the rest of my burrito. I ran into a friend of mine there and it turns out I had camped next to him the night before without realizing, since it was dark when I'd arrived. Oh well, would have been too late to hang out anyways.
Spent too much time visiting and it was now 4pm, time to get going.
Passed a couple of selfie-taking hikers just below the start of the trail. Then I had the canyon to myself the rest of the afternoon. Well, except for all those flowers again.
Dropping in to the canyon
Flood damage from the last months' rains was substantial. It had been a few years since I'd seen any water flowing this high in the canyon, never mind massive sand deposits from flash floods.
Stream channel is about 150ft wider than normal
Singletrack would randomly disappear and reappear in places due to washouts. Bypasses are already forming.
Loved the blue flowers especially
Rock roll on the right has been re-opened. I removed the cheater rocks from the exit ramp.
Came around a corner and this tiny rattler was stretched out across the trail. I grabbed a stick to prod him off the trail, but he gave chase for 10 ft instead, hissing
It is wild how high the water got through here
A sea of yellow flowers carpeted the lower canyon
With purple ones sprinkled in if you looked closer
More pink flowers, such brilliant color
These tiny yellow and purple ones were everywhere on the desert floor
Sun's just gone down, trying to get to the saddle left side/middle by dark. Have a bit of fun singletrack yet to go
Back on Wildhorse ridgeline. Turned my light on at the top, same place I turned it off this morning. Ran into half a dozen backpackers just before the saddle, doing a gear check over-nighter for a Catalina Island trip.
My ride from there back to the bottom didn't take long and I was soon enjoying a refreshing beverage back at the truck, 8pm. Temps had been a bit warm but there was a nice cool breeze all day so it wasn't bad. With the flowers and the lack of people, it was probably one of the best days on the bike I've ever had.
It was a big ride but I didn't think it was terribly hard. I just kept moving pretty steadily throughout the day, and had two longer (~90min each) rest stops. Most of what I rode was ridable, and I hiked some of the short punchy climbs that I might normally try and ride. I'll definitely be doing this again at some point. If I really get brave I will include the climb up Santa Rosa as well. Too much snow up there right now.
52mi, +/- 8,050 ft.
