Indio Hills Badland Trailhead

 



This was an awesome trail, we loved it.  The trail is over 8 kilometres long.  There is a nice lot to park your car for free and the trailhead even has a gate.  Follow the fairly clear trail markers.  We accidentally misinterpreted one and went the wrong way, costing us an extra 45 minutes and a steep unsafe trail we should not have been on.  No broken bones, so all was good.

The trail is fairly uneventful at first and meanders along as you walk toward the mountains in the distance. 










The trail takes you up to the highest peak behind the one that you see in the photo.


The rocks are on an angle.


Once up close to the rockfaces, you can see why they named this the Badlands.  The mountain was pushed up by tectonic plates at a very weird angle which makes for interesting pictures.


Once you get into the canyon it eventually narrows in several places for some very interesting walks.  If you are in the least bit claustrophobic you may not like this part of the trail but for us it was the most interesting!  













Depending on how often you stop to examine the rocks this trail should take you just over 2 hours but for us, it took 3.5 with the added time of taking that wrong trail.








This was an unsafe area that was not a trail.

This is where we took the wrong turn and went to the left when we should have gone up the middle.

Back on the correct path.

On the other side of the canyon is an open desert and another valley.

Badland views.


Back on top of first canyon and on our way down.




It was a very pretty trail.










Holy rocks are everywhere!  The sandstone mountains have been weathered in such a way as to create huge and small holes in the rocks and other weird erosion spectacles.





I would highly recommend this hike, it was our favourite on this trip to California.  Bring lots of water and follow the trail markers!






This was a very pretty bush with bright blue flowers that was not on any other trail.


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