The Coachella Valley Preserve

Just a few miles from our resort is the Coachella Valley Preserve. Home of one of the rarest lizards in the United States; the Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard. After our great success with the mountain sheep yesterday, I thought we might get lucky two days in a row.

The preserve is 22,000 acres of desert with several oasis and valleys in it. We hiked to the Hidden Palms Oasis, about 2 miles round trip. The area is beautiful and the weather was about 68 degrees.

As we discovered last year, the oasis are easy to spot by the palm trees growing out of the desert. We just followed the trail until we got there. They always are further away than they look.

This oasis houses an important pond which was quite picturesque as you can see. The pond was full of the desert Pupfish, a small guppy looking fish who survives in the harshest of conditions. I shot a lot of photos of them yesterday but just think of a mud colored guppy and you'll have a good image of them.
So... what about the rare lizard? Well, even the volunteer at the visitor's center had never seen one. They are in a protected area that no one is allowed to go to. And they seem to spend most of their time buried in the sand. This guy may (or may not) be related to the aboved named rare lizard. He was quite happy to be photographed so I obliged him (or her). All in all we had a great time.

Tomorrow we are going to visit the Joshua Tree National Park which is a few miles north of here.