The Glorious Holy Shit Makes it to Mecca!
The Mecca in California is a Mecca for hikers. It is one of the unincorporated desert communities in the Riverside County accessed by getting off Interstate 10 and going a little southeast bound on Highway 86. It is about half an hour drive from Palm Springs, if you don't get stopped for speeding.
The Salton Sea is Mecca's version of the Dead Sea. Just like the Dead Sea located in the vicinity of Jordan and Israel, the Salton Sea is a landlocked lake that acquires its salinity on its increasing depth. The Salton Sea is 227 feet below sea level and lies on top of San Andreas fault. Any fish that gets into Salton Sea is instantly processed as fish sauce. 
A marbled cake, a layered mocca cake, or even a left-over salmon dinner are just a few of the images that come to mind while staring at the landscape churned by orgasmic eruptions. Thank heavens for San Andreas’ fault, the badlands where the Painted Canyon is shacked up with ladders is not bad at all! 
The ladders that make the canyon look like they are getting a touch up, are another welcome treat, sparing hikers of boulder scrambling and free solo climbing. The ladders whiich are placed strategically over difficult passages and drop-offs have been changed to steel over the years. The Bureau of Land maintains Mecca Hills Wilderness that consists of the laddered Painted Canyon. 
Many many years ago, when Mecca Hills was a lot younger than now, she as Mother Nature, decided to get San Andreas laid. The consequence of Mecca Hills, as Mother Nature lying on top of San Andreas created a lot mother fucking earthquakes! It was all San Andreas’ fault!
Mother Nature gave birth to what is now known as the Painted Canyon as a result of the tryst. Geologic formations of minerals and salts give the curves and shapes of the slot-like Painted Canyon more than its ecstatic looks. When it rained, it poured of course and there were creeks and and water falls in between the river beds. In 1905 when it rained more than it should, the Colorado River overflowed into the catch basin of Mecca Hills. The Salton Sea of today was what used to be Mecca Hills' catch basin.
Without Che, the custodian of the holy mosque for the group, getting lost in the labyrinth of the canyon would have been easy. But I agree with Ernest Sato who would return to see the Painted Canyon another time. Mecca is worth a return pilgrimage.
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