Coyote Canyon
Ocotillo Flats

Ocotillo Flat is not a place to just pass through. It is a place in which to wander. Unless you are using it as a route to Lower Willows and Box Canyon, you should not have to be in a hurry.

Each visit is different. I like to enter Ocotillo Flat somewhere between Desert Gardens and First Crossing and look for something that grabs my interest on that particular day. It may be a way to step out of the storm-widened creek bed into the fields of cactus and ocotillo. It may be a way to follow a wash up to the barren hills to the north and east. Maybe it will be to follow a bird or to look for lizards.

That sets the wandering in motion. From then on, I always seem to find one objective after another. In winter, I might see a chuparosa plant being fought over by a couple of hummingbirds. On a warm day in late spring, I might encounter a chuckwalla, sitting patiently in the sun while I lift my camera to my eye and focus its lens on him. Maybe I will just decide to walk in a wash, or on the ground above it, because I decide I like the way it looks.

Ocotillo Flat starts at Coyote Creek and stretches across soft sandy soil to the naked hills and canyons to the east and north. It is bird country, reptile country, and cactus country with wildflowers in season. It includes one of the most impressive stands of ocotillo anywhere.

The cactus wren, the largest of the wrens with a spotted breast, is likely to be found here among the cholla and other cactus. It's easy to step on cholla. This plant propagates when the wind blows off little pieces of it a few inches long.

A hiking and riding trail weaves through Ocotillo Flat. Sometimes I take it, and sometimes I strike out on my own. Some days I will walk close to Coyote Creek where there are plants like mulefat (baccharis viminea), which the Cahuilla used to retard baldness. On other days I will work my way up to the mountains and canyons and try to imagine Cahuilla hunters lurking there, trying to bring down unsuspecting jackrabbits.

The place is full of Cahuilla Indian history, most of it unfortunately lost to us. Archaeologists have been able to determine that arrowheads were made in the canyons at the base of the mountains. Visitors today can walk along the northern reaches of Ocotillo Flat and see where ocotillo was planted close together to form a fence. It isn't certain whether the purpose was to keep cattle in or animals out.

In navigating through this area, I always find the gauging station (a little sand-color block house with an antenna on it) to be a good landmark. It's at Second Crossing. Another landmark is the place where the west-side mountain spills into the valley just north of First Crossing.

Somewhere between the two crossings, Coyote Creek goes under ground, unless it is just after a storm and the creek is full. Desert willow, which produces a long and pretty pink flower, is one of the many shrubs that grow densely along the creek bed, providing cover for such birds as the little gray verdin and snipe (which look like misplaced coastal shorebird). I have also noticed a roadrunner or two in this area, perhaps looking for rattlesnakes, one of the bird’s favorite meals.

The soil in Ocotillo Flat is called alluvium. Alluvium is the sand, rocks and gravel that rainstorms wash from the mountainsides to the desert floor. Alluvium deposits are generally soft, or unconsolidated as the geologists like to say. Unless the alluvium includes clay, the rocks, gravel and sand haven't stuck together to the point where you or a little ground animal can't dig in them.