The Oasis of Mara is the palm oasis at park headquarters in Twentynine Palms, reached from a trailhead lot off Utah Trail that has running water and restrooms. A half-mile paved loop, wheelchair accessible and stroller friendly, circles the palms, and visitors check at a visitor center first to learn how much of it is open. The grove marks the Pinto Mountain Fault, and the park now irrigates it to keep it alive. This was Serrano and Chemehuevi home ground long before there was a town, and both peoples still hold it important. The loop is the one trail in the park that allows leashed pets.
In a little over half a mile on your left, the lot road leads to the Oasis of Mara Trailhead, with restrooms and a bottle station. A half-mile paved loop circles the palms, good for strollers and wheelchairs, and it's the one trail here that allows a dog on a leash. Part of it has been closed by flood, so check at a visitor center before you walk it. The Serrano first settled here and called it Maara', and the Chemehuevi later joined them. The name has been translated former home, bitter water, and place of little springs and much grass. The Twenty-Nine Palms Band calls this its ancestral home, and it remains important to both peoples. The palms mark the Pinto Mountain Fault, where crushed rock forces water up. The pools dried up in the nineteen forties, the water table is now more than thirty feet down, palm roots reach about thirteen, and the park has watered this grove since the nineteen eighties.
Photo: NPS / Glauco Puig-Santana · Public domain (NPS staff photo)