Coachella Valley Preserve

For thousands of years, particles of sand from the San Bernardino Mountains and Indio Hills washed into the Coachella Valley, forming a system of dunes. Today, these dunes are part of the Coachella Valley Preserve System, a 20,000-acre sanctuary that is home to several species of increasingly rare wildlife. The Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard depends on this unusual blowsand desert for survival, and "swims" through the sand to escape predators or summer heat on the desert surface. Four other unique wildlife species can also be found here: the Coachella roundtailed ground squirrel, the giant red velvet mite, the flat-tailed horned lizard and the giant palm-boring beetle. The Coachella Valley Preserve also contains several palm oases, formed because San Andreas Fault lines allow water flowing underground to rise to the surface. The spectacular Thousand Palms Oasis includes a mile-long trail that winds past pools containing endangered desert pupfish. Native vegetation includes creosote bush, burrobush, smoke tree and desert lavender, part of this area's unique habitat for wildlife. The Coachella Valley Preserve is administered by BLM's Palm Springs-South Coast Field Office and the Center for Natural Lands Management.