POTD: Palm Canyon

Palm Canyon
Kofa Mountains, Arizona
2022

I first heard about Palm Canyon when I was living in Arizona in the mid 1970s. It’s the only place in Arizona where one can find California fan palm trees growing in their native habitat. I thought that would be worth a visit someday. About 45 years later I finally made it there. We camped just outside the mouth of the canyon one night and while there hiked the short trail up the canyon to see the palm trees way up in niches in a narrow side canyon. It was neat to (finally) see the palm trees but I was much more taken by the canyon itself as well as the whole Kofa mountain setting. The photos I took of the palm trees are not particularly worthy but the ones of the mountains were I think. This one is looking out the mouth of the canyon from up near the palm tree viewing area.

2 thoughts on “POTD: Palm Canyon”

  1. Stephen E Johnson

    On my recent visit to California I was surprised to learn that the California fan palm tree is the only native palm in California, although many other species successfully are planted and grow there. It actually has quite a range north, at least as far as Red Bluff, CA, which is about 140 miles north of Sacramento. Palms also grow in Redding, but I am unsure if they were native to the area or not. (Palms also grow in Portland and around parts of the Puget Sound area, too, though not natives.)

    1. We saw palm trees growing in Portmeirion, Wales when visiting there. Apparently there is enough warm water coming up from the south Atlantic to moderate the temperatures on the coast there to make it suitable for palm trees. (Portmeirion, by the way, is the strange village where they filmed the strange TV show The Prisoner, starring Pat McGoohan, in the 60s.)

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