← All articles · United States · 7 June 2013

Palm Springs

Palm Springs in June: the aerial tramway up Mount San Jacinto, a picnic above the desert, hotel pool time, Marilyn on the corner and palms everywhere.

Palm Springs in June 2013 was our cool-off stop between Los Angeles and the Arizona desert, which is a strange thing to say about a town this hot. The trick is that it keeps a mountain out back.

Up the mountain

The aerial tramway hauls you out of the heat and up Chino Canyon to Mount San Jacinto, where pine trees replace palms in about ten minutes.

Gold Palm Springs Aerial Tramway car passing a support tower on the rocky cliffside of Chino Canyon — The tramway car, which rotates as it climbs so everyone gets a turn at the view.

View down the tramway cables over rocky ridges to the flat Coachella Valley floor — Looking back down the cables at the Coachella Valley, already several degrees cooler.

Inga in a straw hat eating a sandwich at a mountain station picnic table, camera and long lens on the table and valley haze beyond the railing — Lunch at the top: sandwich, crisps, Pepsi and a lens that weighs more than the picnic.

Inga and Dileep in straw hats at a fenced viewpoint on Mount San Jacinto, a plaque on a boulder beside them and the desert floor far below — The viewpoint above the mountain station. The valley floor is a vertical mile and a half below, give or take.

Selfie of Inga and Dileep in straw cowboy hats with pines and the pale Coachella Valley far below — Cowboy hats: bought ironically, worn constantly.

Back down in the heat

Down in town, June is managed with pools, shade and an unhurried main street.

Inga lying on a sun lounger by a hotel pool lined with yellow parasols — Recovery position. June in Palm Springs is best experienced horizontally, near water.

Inga posing beneath the giant Forever Marilyn statue in downtown Palm Springs — Forever Marilyn, all eight metres of her, holding that dress down over downtown.

Inga in a cowboy hat at a crossing on Palm Canyon Drive, palms lining the road and the San Jacinto mountains behind — Palm Canyon Drive doing exactly what it says on the sign.

Green street signs for South Palm Canyon Drive and El Alameda against palm fronds and blue sky — The corner of Palm Canyon and El Alameda, in case anyone doubted the palms.

Inga standing at the base of a row of very tall palm trees with shaggy trunks — The palms here are less trees, more infrastructure.

Blue Coyote Bar and Grill menu cover with a cartoon coyote and a Welcome to Palm Springs sign, a straw hat resting at the table edge — Dinner decided by cover art: the Blue Coyote, celebrating twenty years when we visited, welcoming us to town.

From here the road bent east into Arizona, by way of Scottsdale and Phoenix, then Sedona. The hats came too.