Today, 22nd January 2019 at 2 PM I was rising with my wife from Camino Crescanso in Palm Springs along an unofficial trail into Desert Riders Park. Having walked maybe a quarter mile upwards from street we stopped to have a look around and suddenly bighorn sheep started to appear behind the rocks less than a hundred yards away from us. Soon there was a pack on nine bighorns in front of us!
We never before have seen any bighorns on the trails around Palm Springs and San Jacinto Mountains and even in Whitewater the biggest pack we have seen before was only five bighorn sheep so this was amazing! They did not seem to care about us, maybe the pack leader just staring at us for some time 😉 Maybe the bighorns came so near the streets because we did not see any people or people with dogs there and usually we have met several along this road part of the trail. We actually found this “hidden” trail thanks to a man walking his dog here. On certain trails higher up the mountains dogs are not allowed at all because bighorn sheep smell them from a distance and go away.
We took photos with our smartphones and you may see the bighorns in the photo below in an enlarged part of one shot, could have been much better with a proper camera.
