Painted Canyon in the Mecca Hills of Riverside County has always been one of my favorite hiking destinations. The trailhead lies at the end of a 4-mile long bumpy dirt road off of Box Canyon Road just north of the Coachella Canal and the community of Mecca. Incidentally, the 122-mile long canal transports its Colorado River water from the All-American Canal near Algodones Dunes to Lake Cahuilla on the west side of the Coachella Valley, and serves the needs of the Valley's 60,000 acres of farmland, which are some of the most productive in the world. Painted Canyon is a winding sand-filled trek which can be done either as an exploration on its own or as part of a loop up through Ladder Canyon and then back down either Big Painted Canyon or Little Painted Canyon. I did not have time to do the entire loop and remained within Big Painted Canyon. I expect that a lot of water came down through this canyon last fall and caused a lot of plants to germinate. Most of the species shown here were displayed also in the previous two galleries, and I include them here mostly as a documentation of what was blooming in this location in January 2012. In a number of cases, such as the broadleaf gilia, the Spanish needles, the Phacelia crenulata and the little gold poppy, I saw only a single plant, but there may have been others. The Eremalche and the Atrichoseris were found in a rocky area just outside the mouth of the canyon. Thanks to Kate Harper for correcting my Datura identification. |
