Best Easy Day Hikes Palm Springs and Coachella Valley (Best Easy Day Hikes Series) Paperback – October 5, 2010

After running a half-marathon in Huntington Beach on Superbowl Sunday, 2011, my wife and I spent the rest of the week at a Priceline Palm Desert hotel before flying back to the midwestern winter. We used this book and took four hikes: Moon Country Loop, Upper Palm Canyon, Art Smith Trail, and Big Morongo Canyon. This little book was all we needed to make our selection, find the trailhead, and consult along the way to make sure we didn't make a wrong turn. It is very portable.We had also purchased a full-size hiking manual for Palm Springs, but it turned out to really be too big and too much information for a trip of only a few days. This little book was just fine.

Good basic book for day hikes in Palm Springs and surrounding area. Pretty small in size and length but covers the basics.

Beautiful hikes, from challenging to easy, paid and unpaid sites, dog friendly and dog restrictive too. It was cheap, and very informative.

November. The mountains are rapidly closing up, and another hiking season is drawing to a close. Already, I am spending more time in the gym than I am on the trail. But even as I walked today around Lake Gregory, through mist, wind and fog, I am reminded that some places enjoy ideal hiking weather from now till March. One of those places is Palm Springs, just over an hour's drive from here.The city of Palm Springs and surrounding communities have gone out of their way to create an extensive trail system in and around the city. Coupled with the readily accessible wildlands on local Indian reservations and a few nature preserves, Palm Springs offers more than just art and entertainment; it showcases some of the best off season hiking in California. Many of the best trails are described in this book by committed desert rat Bruce Grubbs. Just don't let the title fool you. These hikes are relatively short (the longest is a 9.6 exploration of Big Morongo Canyon) but they are not easy. Some gain about a thousand feet per mile. Indeed, my only complaint about the book is that Grubbs does not list the elevation gain for the hikes he describes in this book, and some of the trails (the Museum trail, for example) are quite steep.That said, you can have a lot of fun walking in and about Palm Springs. If you want to explore some of the wilder parts of a very urban portion of the California desert, this book is a good place to start. Never far from the city, you will nonetheless get treated to some beautiful views, wonderful palm groves, and spectacular desert hiking. Just don't venture here much after March.

easy to use

I purchased this book because I’m going to be doing some camping in the Palm Springs area. Unfortunately, only two hikes in the entire book are dog friendly. So I returned it. If you’re looking for hiking trails that allow dogs, this is not a good resource.

Nice compact book that easily fits in your backpack or pocket (4" X 7") that includes essential data on each hike along with maps, trailheads, length, season, difficulty etc.

We have several places to hike, they are all good and offer nice views and an enjoyable hike. This book helps you sort out the choices.