Bighorn in September is one of the quietest addresses in Southern California. The Santa Rosa foothills hold the last of the summer heat, the two courses run on skeleton hours, and the club's seven indoor and outdoor dining venues are enough to keep most owners on-property for weeks at a stretch. Then a single Sunday resets the whole valley floor.
That Sunday is October 25, 2026. It is the day El Paseo, the McCallum, and The Living Desert all switch back on within a few miles of each other, and it is the reason a Bighorn owner's fall calendar is really a booking calendar. The homes sit 1,000 feet above the valley floor, three miles up Highway 74 from El Paseo's shopping district. That drop is short enough that everything below the gate is essentially your extended clubhouse for six months, and long enough that residents who plan the season before their neighbors return are the ones who eat, sit, and park where they want.
The fulcrum is one Sunday, not a whole month
The 62nd Annual Palm Desert Golf Cart Parade rolls down El Paseo on Sunday, October 25, 2026. The Palm Desert Rotary pancake breakfast starts at 8 a.m. at El Paseo and San Luis Rey, vendor booths and the custom cart and classic car shows open at 9 a.m., and the parade itself steps off at noon behind a Palm Springs Air Museum flyover. More than 100 decorated carts are expected, and the route runs down El Paseo from San Luis Rey heading west.
For an owner coming down Highway 74, three details matter more than the parade itself. First, this is the day locals treat as the unofficial start of season, which means every table on El Paseo is claimed by dinner. Second, the parking structure at The Gardens on El Paseo and the Presidents Plaza lots are the practical options if you are not walking in from a friend's condo, and both fill by mid-morning. Third, VIP seating is sold through the Palm Desert Area Chamber of Commerce and is worth the reservation if you plan to bring guests who would rather not stand for two hours in October sun.
Book the parade morning, the Sunday dinner, and one McCallum night in the same sitting. Everything else on the fall calendar bends around those three anchors.
The Living Desert weekend that sits next to it
Howl-O-Ween at The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens is the family-facing bookend to the parade weekend. It runs across a Saturday and Sunday in late October with trick-or-treat stations, limited-edition animal trading cards, festive face painting, keeper connections, and pumpkin enrichment for the animals themselves. The zoo has hosted the event on the last full weekend of October in recent years, with hours running roughly 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and general adult admission has run about $39.95, discounted for active and retired military and SNAP or EBT cardholders through the Museums for All initiative.
Two things about this event are worth knowing before you invite grandchildren out. Adult costumes cannot include a full face mask, and the zoo asks guests to bring a reusable bag for trick-or-treating rather than a plastic one. Members get in on their membership, which is the closest thing to a Bighorn-style perk the valley's public attractions offer.
What the McCallum's 2026–27 season looks like from a Bighorn calendar
The McCallum Theatre sits next to College of the Desert, about six minutes from the Bighorn gate. Its 2026–27 season went on sale to McCallum Annual Members on May 18, 2026, and to the public on May 22. The lineup announced by President and CEO Yvonne Bell mixes touring Broadway with concerts, dance, and comedy. From a resident's booking standpoint, the fall and winter dates worth putting on the calendar first include:
- Randy Rainbow, October 2026, for the comedy audience
- The Wiz, December 2026, the Broadway tour landing during the holiday stretch
- Dave Koz, December 2026, the jazz booking that tends to sell out first
- Idina Menzel, Patti LuPone, and Audra McDonald across the season for the concert nights
- Ozomatli, La Santa Cecilia, and Aida Cuevas for Hispanic Heritage Month programming
- Cheyenne Jackson and Straight No Chaser as part of LGBTQ+ Pride programming
- The Palm Desert Choreography Festival, returning with international, national, and local choreographers
The single most useful move for a Bighorn owner is to pick two or three nights across October through February now, before the Broadway titles and the vocalists sell into the resale market at premium prices.
The tables that opened while you were away
Bighorn's on-property dining is a real reason to stay in, but summer 2025 and 2026 brought enough legitimate new restaurants down the hill that the calculus changes. The short list worth working through in the first month back:
| Restaurant | Location | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Bohemios Prime by Olga | Palm Desert | All-day room from Olga, with prime steaks, sushi, pastas, and seafood alongside elevated Mexican |
| Bougainvillea Fresh Cuisine | Palm Springs (Sunrise Way) and Palm Desert | Italian-leaning dinner with fresh pasta, plus Latin lunch service including branzino, Jidori chicken, and New Zealand lamb chops |
| Project Burger | Palm Desert | Family-owned smash burger room with 100% fresh beef and house-made sauces |
| A Bakery | 72221 Highway 111, Palm Desert | Long-fermentation organic bakery moving from farmers' markets into a permanent brick-and-mortar |
| Double Date | Omni Rancho Las Palmas, Rancho Mirage | New concept built around the valley's date industry, with dishes like lamb osso buco with date molasses |
| Desert Pearl | Omni Rancho Las Palmas, Rancho Mirage | Reimagined room named for Palm Springs figure Pearl McManus, with floor-to-ceiling glass framing the resort gardens |
| Bar Issi | Thompson Palm Springs | Maximalist Italian room from restaurateurs Marissa and Matt Hermer of Olivetta and Chez Mia |
| Counter Reformation | Parker Palm Springs | Reopened 22-seat European-inspired wine bar with plates like caviar with crème fraîche and quail egg, and roasted shallot tarte tatin |
For weeknight dinners, Bohemios Prime and Bougainvillea are the two rooms closest to Bighorn geographically. For a weekend that already has guests staying with you, Double Date and Desert Pearl at Omni Rancho Las Palmas pair well with a late morning at The Living Desert.
The rhythms that resume, not the events
The dated events get most of the press, but the recurring rhythms are what a resident actually uses. El Paseo Cruise Night runs on Friday evenings through the season starting in January, the district's First Friday ArtWalk runs November through April, and the free El Paseo Courtesy Cart shuttles the nine-block district end to end from October through May. The Palm Springs Cultural Center's Certified Farmers' Market program adds a Desert Hot Springs location on select Sundays from November through April, alongside the standing Palm Springs market.
The Living Desert has also extended its after-hours Wild Nights program on Friday evenings due to demand, which is the closest the valley gets to an adult version of the zoo experience.
The booking order that actually works
If you are back on the mountain by early October and looking at all of this at once, the sequence matters more than the list. In practice:
- Buy McCallum tickets for two or three dates between October and February while single seats still exist in the orchestra
- Reserve Howl-O-Ween admission or confirm your Living Desert membership before mid-October
- Lock in Golf Cart Parade VIP seating through the Palm Desert Area Chamber, or block off the corner of El Paseo and San Luis Rey by 8 a.m. that Sunday
- Book Sunday dinner October 25 at one of the newer Palm Desert rooms, not on El Paseo itself
- Set a standing First Friday ArtWalk night with the friends you actually want to see this winter
Do those five things in that order and the rest of the fall books itself around them.
The through-line
Bighorn's advantage is not that it insulates you from the valley below. It is that it gives you a private base from which the valley's public calendar becomes a menu. The three-mile drive down Highway 74 is short, the summer stillness is real, and the flip on October 25 is sharper than most owners expect it to be the first time they see it happen. The residents who spend the best six months are the ones who treated September as a booking window, not a lull.
At Rich Nolan, the fall calendar is one of the ways we get to know clients who own on the mountain, and one of the reasons we know Bighorn Golf Club the way a neighbor does rather than the way a listing sheet does. If you are thinking about how your home fits into the next chapter of the desert, schedule a design-first marketing consultation and let's talk before season is fully in swing.
