Hikers New bring new eyes desert to the

Tumco ghost town Future months, future hikes

April was a month of hiking and exploration in the Imperial Valley. Every Sunday for four weeks, the Imperial Valley Desert Museum paired with local residents to lead new hikers and introduce them to the desert in their own backyard. Calling themselves the IVDM Lowlanders, these new, never-before hikers celebrated our unique landscape through a series of 2-mile, flat-land hikes that included Painted Gorge, Fossil Canyon, and the Tumco mining ghost town.

Filling a Community Need

Since opening its doors in 2012, the Imperial Valley Desert Museum has served the people of Imperial county and beyond as their desert resource and guide. In trail maps and exhibits, as well as through its onsite field-trip programs, the IVDM has educated and informed about the biological and geological diversity and beauty to be found outside. The desert is not simply a hot and monotone wasteland. The desert is flush with life and variation – and we are excited to show that.

Through this new pilot program, the IVDM sought to define and meet the needs and interests of its community for outdoor exploration and engagement. What does the desert mean to a family with young children? To a high schooler? To snowbirds and seniors? Far too often, the desert can be seen as something inaccessible, a place reserved for only a specific sort of active lifestyle. This is not the case: With proper awareness and reasonable caution, our desert is a place for everyone.

Across the board, the response was positive. There is a natural curiosity and interest by the people of the region for their environment. From the sand dunes of Algodones in the east to the canyons and gorges hidden within the Coyote Mountains in the west, the Imperial Valley is home to an incredibly diverse and changing landscape whose harshness has a history of producing rugged and resilient plants, animals, and people. Pairing with the Imperial Valley Desert Museum, 30 new hikers can now boast of and share that knowledge first-hand.

Painted Gorge

One of the first hikes led by the Imperial Valley Desert Museum this spring was a 3-mile round-trip exploration of Painted Gorge, a progressive desert wash area located just east of the Coyote Mountains and the town of Ocotillo. Described as one of the most geologically diverse areas in the American Southwest, Painted Gorge features a kaleidoscope of colors through its ever-shifting series of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rock. Led by IVDM interim Director Dr. David Breeckner, the day’s hikers got to see, touch and experience the results of millions of years of plate tectonics, upheaval and activity through the diverse rock formations and terraces thatline the gorge on either of its winding sides. Joined by a trio of circling raptors (birds of prey), skittish desert iguanas and geckos, and an overly curious baby rabbit, these hikers were given their first glimpse of the resilience and variety of life in our desert region.

Fossil Canyon

Traveling out of Ocotillo along the appropriately named Shell Canyon Road, a convoy of vehicles drove to the base of the Coyote Mountains to explore a geological legacy spanning the last 10 million years. Evidencing a landscape of change, this region of the Valley captures the history of water and marine life extending back to the last 4 million to 10 million years, when the Imperial Valley was still a part of the Gulf of California. Hidden away at the end of a winding and sandy desert road, hikers led by staff Education Coordinator Marcie Landeros saw ancient shell beds preserved alongside the jagged cuts of the Elsinore Fault line. On their hike back out, although the creatures themselves failed to make themselves known, the recent goings of the region’s Bighorn Sheep were captured in the steep ascent of their hoofprints against the canyon’s more sandy slopes.

Tumco ghost town

On the eastern edge of the Imperial Valley, past the sand dunes of Algodones, there is the ghost town of Tumco. With a recorded history going back over 300 years to the first Spanish settlers, Tumco is one of only two gold rush towns still in existence in the state of California. At its peak in the 1890s, this desert town was home to over 500 miners and their families and produced more than $1,000 of gold a day. Today, little of this historic site still remains. Tailings from the cyanide baths – once used to process the gold ore – have buried most of the site, while vandalism and harsh desert conditions continue to degrade what remains. The Lowlander hikers followed the designated trails which guided them through the old neighborhoods, past the west cemetery and saloon, and up to the cyanide baths themselves. Underfoot and around, while the foundations and town itself are faded, traces of human habitation still abound. Rusted cans, nails, and even rifle casings are visible across the landscape, telling a story of a town since lost to time.

Future months, future hikes

The IVDM Lowlanders is a new hiking program currently being developed by the Imperial Valley Desert Museum. Through the success of its pilot program this spring, the museum will return with a full activity list of new and engaging beginner-level hikes this fall. This hiking series is open to people of all ages and abilities, and is intended to provide a fun and engaging way for the people of the Valley to get out, explore and come to know the wonders in their own backyard.