FIVE STAR ADVENTURES
INC.
Getting a line on
the San Andreas
A Jeep tour is the best
way to explore the eerie
landscape sculpted by  
seismic force in the Coachella Valley.
[HOME EDITION]
Los Angeles Times - Los Angeles,
Calif.
Sunday, March 6,2005
Strolling the San
Andreas fault is about
as down-to-earth as you
can get. And entirely
otherworldly.

In the Mecca Hills, the
fault zone is a
putty-colored no man's
land of pinnacles and
ravines, strewn with a
rainbow of rocks
washed down from
surrounding hilltops.
These badlands at the
eastern end of the
Coachella Valley are
just one small section of
the 650-mile stretch
where the Pacific and
North American plates
do the bump and grind
that Californians know
so well.

In truth, I didn't set out
to tour a source of
California's earthquake
nightmares; apart from
the famously shaky
hamlet of Parkfield in
Monterey County, I
hadn't a clue where to
find the San Andreas
fault. I'd just felt a winter
trip to Palm Springs
coming on and wanted
to sample a side of the
Coachella Valley that
was less golf cart and
more Jeep.

Several companies in
the area offer desert
Jeep tours, and the two
I took both turned out to
be explorations of the
fault zone -- which is no
coincidence. The San
Andreas has been the
primary sculptor of the
valley's landscape for
millions of years.

On a Saturday last
month, five strangers
rendezvoused in the
parking lot of a coffee
shop just off Interstate
10 in Palm Desert. Two
open-roofed red Jeeps
awaited us, as did Gordi
-- a retired science
teacher and a
knowledgeable guide
for Desert Adventures
Jeep Eco Tours. It
would be an hour to our
first stop on the
four-hour Mystery
Canyon Tour.

As we drove, first
paralleling the interstate
and then heading
south, Gordi kept up an
interesting patter. Stick
to the main desert
towns -- Palm Springs
etc. -- and the
Coachella Valley seems
little more than desert
veneered with golf
greens. Get farther out,
however, and it's
heavily agricultural.
Gordi pointed out the
acreage of West Coast
Turf, which supplies sod
to sports arenas and
golf courses around the
country. As we cruised
past, he identified the
fields of carrots,
artichokes, potatoes
and table grapes, and
groves of citrus, pecans
and date palms. Indio,
we learned, is the polo
capital of the western
U.S., with tournaments
at its two clubs nearly
every weekend during
the season.
When we'd put
developed areas
behind us, Gordi
launched into local
geological history. In

prehistoric times, the
Gulf of California
extended this far north;
more recently, Lake
Cahuilla covered the
valley until about 400
years ago. He pointed
out the water level of
the old lake, a "bathtub
ring" around the base
of the nearby
mountains.

Soon we turned onto
unpaved Painted
Canyon Road, which
led to our destination --
the Mecca Hills
Wilderness Area, a
maze of eroded rock
thrust up by the San
Andreas fault's seismic
shifts. Gordi identified
plants -- creosote bush,
palo verde, ironwood,
smoke tree, honey
mesquite -- and
explained how each was
used by the Cahuilla
Indians. Sand verbena
and desert sunflowers
were in unusually early
bloom, thanks to the
rains.

We piled out for a stroll
through the fault gouge
-- the tortured,
crumbling, dun
landscape formed as
the tectonic plates grind
past each other.
Before I actually
stood on this
fractured land, I'd
imagined the San
Andreas fault as a
narrow fissure across
an otherwise normal
landscape. But the
Mecca Hills' fault
zone, with its eerie
rock formations, is
several miles wide.
The San Andreas
stretches all the way
from the Imperial
Valley, south of the
Salton Sea, to Point
Arena in Mendocino
County, where it
veers off into the
Pacific. Even at its
narrowest, the fault
zone is 100 yards
wide.

We got out of the
Jeep again at Painted
Canyon, less than 10
miles north of the
Salton Sea. The
name is a little
misleading; this isn't
the vivid desert color
of Arizona or Utah.
The walls, formed of
rock folded and tilted
by quakes, are
"painted" more by
changing light and
shadow than by
minerals. Gordi's plan
was to hike through
the gorge to Ladder
Canyon, a smaller
side canyon with
ladders that ascend to
overlooks. But the
rains had changed the
lay of the land,
washing rocks and soil
into the gorge. The
entrance to the
canyon seemed to
have disappeared.

It was sort of
anticlimactic and
maybe a little sedate
for a Jeep tour; the
roads hadn't even
required four-wheel
drive. But it had been
a congenial afternoon,
ending with a stop at
Oasis Date Gardens.
Gordi really hauled to
make it back to the
coffee shop by 5 p.m.,
about blowing our
eyebrows off in the
process.
A bumpy, fun ride
For the second tour, Tony tagged
along. Again a group assembled at an
intersection north of town to meet our
guide, George of

AAA Five Star Adventures.
Although this was another San
Andreas tour, along a different section
of the fault zone, the trips' similarities
ended there. Forget pavement: We
headed north, and in minutes we were
off-road in a broad, rocky wash.
Five Star Adventures San Andreas
Earthquake Fault Tour
photo taking by Patricia Connell
As we bumped slowly along, George
touched on some of the same
information Gordi had about the desert
environment and ancient Lake Cahuilla.
Here and there we'd pass an old car or
stove riddled with bullet holes. In a
Georgia O'Keeffe moment, we came
across the sun- bleached skull and
bones of a coyote.

We climbed a canyon in the Indio Hills
formed by the crashing tectonic plates
perhaps as recently as 1,500 years
ago. At one spot, George pointed out
the alternately fine and coarse layers of
sedimentary rock in the canyon wall.
They marked dry years -- all sand --
and wet ones, when rocks were washed
down from above. At another stop, he
had us savor the pure silence.

Much as I'd enjoyed the previous day's
outing, this was a real taste of
off-roading -- ruts, rocks and all. Out of
the Jeep, we explored slot canyons on
foot, some barely wide enough to
squeeze into. There was a much
keener sense of adventure and
exploration -- this was fun.

And then, as I slid farther into a narrow
rift between the boulders, someone
made the inevitable crack: "What if
there's an earthquake ... right ... now?"
After the tour, I met
up with my husband,
Tony, to check into
the Springs, a small,
secluded-feeling spa
hotel built in 1935 in
downtown Palm
Springs and
renovated in
2003-04. The
furnishings were chic,
with reproductions of
antique French
posters in place of
the usual hotel art.
The bed was extraordinarily
comfortable, and although the room
was small, the handsome, oversize
bathroom easily compensated. After
the windburn, it was welcome luxury.
TOURS