Cahuilla Tribe to Reopen Long-Closed Canyon

The green golf courses and color-coordinated flower beds of this resort town appear after miles of rocks and sand, but the true desert oases are beyond the reach of drip irrigation, tucked into five canyons sheltering waterfalls and icy streams.

Other canyons on the reservation of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians are open to the public, and their well-groomed trails are popular tourist draws. But Tahquitz Canyon is different.

The tribe closed Tahquitz in 1969 because visitors were trampling wild grapevines, polluting its pools and venturing onto steep cliffs, where some hikers were injured. Another reason, tribal leaders say, was because the Cahuilla believe Tahquitz Canyon to be a sacred and dangerous place--home to Tah-kwish, the spirit of a powerful medicine man who turned on his people.

Now, for the first time in almost three decades, the “No Trespassing” signs are coming down. In January, the tribe began a cleanup effort costing more than $100,000 to remove trash, erase graffiti and roust the homeless who have set up camp in the canyon, just a few blocks from this city’s main drag.

The next steps before the canyon reopens with restricted access, perhaps this year, are fencing, security guards, improved trails and a museum annex.

“The tribe was in a Catch-22,” said Richard Milanovich, tribal chairman. “If we didn’t do anything, this beautiful, magical place would continue to be a dumping ground for individuals who didn’t care what they were doing. But, at the same time, we have respect for our culture.

“We had to ask our ancestors for forgiveness in opening the canyon in order to protect it for the future.”

Milanovich knows the canyon well. As a boy, he and his friends hiked, fished and swam here, always, he recalls, “with the spirit of Tah-kwish very paramount on our minds. We were always wondering, ‘Is anything going to happen?’

“We had the respect necessary to ensure our safety. We didn’t desecrate. We picked up our garbage. We didn’t put our names on rocks,” he said. “Now we’ll trust the public to show Tahquitz respect.”

On a recent morning, Benjamin Callaway was sound asleep under a giant rock, where he said he has lived for seven years, when the canyon cleanup crew found him.

The workers handed Callaway large trash bags to pack up his shredded blankets and papers.

“Do you have your personal belongings?” foreman Ron De Luna asked a still groggy Callaway. “Good. Then, please, move it on out.”

Callaway soon headed off to downtown, a brown plastic bag of old clothes slung over his shoulder. Most days, he is a familiar fixture outside a nearby drugstore, where he stops passersby and asks for change. Others who lived in the canyons held day jobs and built extensive shelters in rock caves, even lugging in bags of cement for home improvements.

When canyon worker Ralph Kato is asked how many people were living in the canyons, he answers not with a number, but by reeling off a half-dozen first names: “Bud, Mel, Tania . . .”

“Tania cried,” Kato said. “She said she was pregnant. But at least they had friends in town. The others, I asked them if there was a shelter where they could go and they said the closest one was in Indio. . . .

“It’s sad, but they’re polite about leaving. They understand they don’t belong here.”

The tribe decided to close the canyon in spring 1969 after a concert by the rock group Canned Heat. After the show, more than 1,000 young people headed to the canyon for days of partying, leaving mountains of trash behind.

For years afterward, Palm Springs’ raucous spring break revelers would spill into the canyon.

“Every Easter week we’d kick out 300 people, some with weapons and drugs,” said Chris Maxwell, coordinator for Palm Springs’ Mounted Search and Rescue team. “Then, as soon as they were gone, the resident transients would scamper back in like rabbits.”

Graffiti proliferated and the problems grew worse. There were assaults, and a man was knifed to death there in 1994, Maxwell said. Each year, the search team is called on for 10 to 12 rescues, several times to retrieve a body after a hiker has fallen from the cliffs.

Though closed, the canyon remained easily accessible because it is just three blocks from South Palm Canyon Drive, the town’s main thoroughfare. The canyon’s first waterfall, where white foam crashes 70 feet into a serene pool surrounded by sycamore trees, is a 20-minute hike from the entrance. From there, the trails quickly grow steep and dangerous, leading to higher, more remote canyons.

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Maxwell said his yearly appearances before the Tribal Council grew redundant.

“Every year they would ask, ‘What can we do?’ And every year I would say, ‘Don’t look. Don’t see.’ The general gist was there wasn’t an effective way to stop it,” he said. “But over a period of years I began to feel the only way was to go all the way. Clean it up. Make it a pay system. Let the influx of regular people wash out the bad element.”

In less than a month, crews have cleared out truckloads of trash and evicted the squatters. The challenge of removing graffiti remains. There is no way to get a vehicle to the falls, so workers plan to hike in with generators and high-pressure water equipment to blast paint from rocks. Then they’ll install a 6-foot-high fence around the mouth of the canyon.

The 1 1/2-mile lower canyon will be the only area opened to the public. The tribe hopes the fence at the canyon’s entrance will keep visitors from the steeper, more dangerous trails. Guards also will patrol to discourage trespassers.

Admission will be $6, the same fee the tribe charges visitors to the trails of Indian Canyons, a touted tourist attraction consisting of three canyons on the south end of the city. The tribe’s fifth canyon, Chico Canyon, is visible from the aerial tram ride on the north side of Palm Springs.

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Linda Vivian, a longtime Palm Springs resident, said she relishes the thought of legally visiting a place she hasn’t seen in 30 years, but she views the opening of Tahquitz with mixed emotions.

“I don’t know if I want them to open it, because I appreciate what the canyon means to the tribe,” she said. “But I understand it’s the only way they can reclaim it.

“I will go back. It’s an amazing place to sit and meditate and dream of what the valley was like when the Indians were the only ones here.”

Milanovich hopes cleaning up the canyon will be a step in his tribe’s efforts to reclaim its heritage. In the early 1950s, the tribe’s elders burned their ceremonial house and all the tribe’s religious artifacts because they believed that the tribe had intermingled to the point that its culture was being desecrated and there was no one left to carry on its traditions.

“I grew up with pains in my heart, not having the tutelage of being Cahuilla,” Milanovich said. “But who we were never left, and now my generation is old enough to have the opportunity to speak. Cleaning up Tahquitz is a way to say, ‘Yes, this is ours’ and instill a sense of pride.”

The 340-member tribe, which has vast real estate holdings in Palm Springs and runs a local casino, has faced thorny decisions as members wrestle with financial disputes and varying visions of the tribe’s direction.

“But with Tahquitz the same thing was on everyone’s lips: It’s not possible in today’s world to keep this special place for ourselves,” Milanovich said. “We made a unanimous decision to open the canyon so everyone can better understand how our ancestors lived.”