At the bottom of a short, steep, switch-backing trail was no dry-as-dust canyon bottom, but rather a thick grove of palm trees and a quiet blue pond that looked like a tropical island that had been somehow misplaced in the surrounding desolation. With each step down, the air seemed to lose a degree or two until, when we’d finally reached the bottom, it must have been 15 degrees cooler than where we’d been just three minutes before!