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The Road Less Traveled

Today’s California Treasure – Anza Borrego Desert State Park

As we continued down the sandy dirt road, heading further into the Arroyo Salado badlands in our campervan named Miley (so called for the miles we travel with her), I was starting to have serious doubts about taking that route. My wife Edie was driving and I was consulting the map, but nothing prepared us for how quickly the primitive camping area would end and how we’d find ourselves on a narrow, gravelly downhill track with no place to turn around. As we continued looking, I had visions of our 9,000-pound, front-wheel-drive van stuck in deep, sandy gravel, in 90-degree desert heat—with no cell service. The question is, how did we get here?

Alameda Post - a large rock formation at Anza Borrego Desert State Park. A man stands on the rocks
The author climbs a hillside in the Borrego Badlands region of the park, looking for good photos for Alameda Post readers. Photo Edie O’Hara.

Bucket list

Anza Borrego Desert State Park had long been on my list of places to see. Located in the great Mojave and Colorado desert region east of San Diego, it is the largest state park in California, encompassing more than 1,000 square miles. That size also makes it the largest state park in the lower 48 states. Anza Borrego has 500 miles of dirt roads, 12 designated wilderness areas, seven cultural preservation areas, and 110 miles of hiking trails. The pictures I’d seen of the spring “super blooms” were stunning, so when an opportunity arose to meet friends there for a week of camping in April, we jumped on it.

Origins of a name

For thousands of years, Native American tribes such as the Kumeyaay and the Cahuilla lived in these deserts and surrounding mountains. Evidence in the form of pictograph rock art can still be seen here, along with morteros—grinding bowls carved into large boulders. These bowls were used to grind local nuts and seeds into meal. But it is Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza, whose expedition passed through this region in 1775-1776, for whom the park would eventually be named.



Anza led an expedition of 240 men, women, and children from New Spain (Mexico) north to Alta California in order to establish settlements at Monterey and San Francisco. On December 24, 1775, the expedition camped in what is now known as the Coyote Valley region of the future park, before continuing north and eventually arriving in Monterey on March 28, 1776.

The Borrego part of the park name comes from the Spanish word for sheep. Though the literal translation actually refers to a lamb, the name is thought to have originated with sheepherders who once tended their flocks in the Borrego Valley. Today, most visitors associate the word borrego with the wild bighorn sheep that can sometimes be seen climbing the steep and rocky hillsides of Anza Borrego Desert State Park. These animals have been protected under the California’s Endangered Species Act since 1971 and under the federal Endangered Species Act since 2000, so this preserve is an important habitat for them.

A place to lay your head

One of the unique aspects of this vast and varied landscape is the number of places one can spend the night. Unlike most national or state parks, where camping is strictly limited to organized campgrounds that generally require reservations—and are often full during peak season—Anza Borrego is much more flexible. In and around this park, there are close to 20 developed campgrounds, both public and private, along with 12 primitive campgrounds. On top of that, there are numerous “dispersed” camping areas, meaning you can camp just about anywhere, as long as you follow basic park rules. If camping is not your thing, not to worry—the town of Borrego Springs offers a number of inns, hotels, resorts, and restaurants.

On our trip, we decided to focus on the primitive campgrounds, since they offered a sense of space, ruggedness, thrift—most of them are free—and just one amenity: a basic outhouse-style restroom. They offered no running water, no garbage pickup, and no numbered sites. You just find a cool place to set up camp among the rocks and cactus, make sure you have plenty of water with you, and enjoy the desert peace. And since the nearest town, Borrego Springs, is an official Dark Sky Community, the skies at night are superb for stargazing.

What do you do in the desert?

A visit to Anza Borrego should begin with a stop at the visitor center in Borrego Springs. The town of 1,800 people sits on private land, surrounded on all sides by the state park. The excellent visitor center, built into a hillside to escape the desert heat, is staffed by helpful park employees and features informative displays on the history, geology, culture, and wildlife of the area. There’s also a theater that plays a 15-minute video every half-hour or so. Of course, there’s the usual gift shop, where we always go to look for a trail map and a souvenir magnet for our van. Armed with maps, information, and water, we headed out to explore Borrego Palm Canyon, one of the more popular hikes in the park.

Water flows in the desert

One of the wonderful things about the Borrego Palm Canyon hike is the number of beautiful flowering cactus and wildflowers you see along the way. The rocky trail features a 700-foot elevation gain and a three-mile round-trip hike if you start at the campground. We started at the visitor center, making it a five-mile round-trip trek. The desert floor is a chaparral environment, with a profusion of bright yellow flowers bursting forth from Brittlebush plants. California Barrel Cactus and Ocotillo also tempted me many times to stop and take photos.

A nicely flowing creek makes its way out of the canyon in the spring, feeding the California Fan Palms in the groves further up the trail. Reaching that cool oasis on a warm, 85-degree day was a reward for the hike up there. Although the creek was calm, cool and refreshing on this day, it can turn into a torrent on other days. A rainstorm on September 10, 2004, unleashed a wall of water that reached 20 feet high in the narrower parts of the canyon. The rushing water and rocks uprooted hundreds of Fan Palms and other vegetation, sending the debris roaring down the canyon. Most of the trail was destroyed, as was part of the campground. The campground was eventually repaired, and the trail restored, but the power of that event is a reminder that our stay on earth is temporary, and Mother Nature has the final word.

A desert retreat

Our days were spent exploring different parts of the park, setting up camp at various primitive camp areas—Culp Valley, Blair Valley, Yaqui Well, Coyote Canyon, Arroyo Salado—and taking hikes through the desert scenery. When one thinks of the word “desert,” an image of a barren or dried-up place may come to mind. But in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. While a desert region does receive less annual rainfall than a non-desert region, the many beautiful plants and animals that thrive there are superbly adapted to conserve water and protect themselves. For example, the vertical ribs along the sides of the California Barrel Cactus allow it to expand in order to store water during rains, while the sharp spines ward off predators. And there’s something about seeing the vibrant magenta blooms of the Beavertail cactus, set against the desert landscape, that is truly stunning.

Aside from being outdoors every day and taking in all of the beauty, quiet, and fresh air, perhaps the most beneficial aspect of a trip like this is freedom from constant connectivity. When we’re home, we’re pretty much connected to news, social media, texts, notifications, and distractions all day long and into the night. But on a camping trip, there’s usually no cell service, and even when there is, it’s barely strong enough to get a plain text through, let alone anything more data-intensive. So you spend your days living in the moment, not online. At night you sit around a fire talking, not watching Netflix. Later on in bed, you read a book rather than scroll away on an iPad. No sirens or car-alarms pierce the silent night. The cumulative effect of living this way for a few days or a week is a feeling of well-being—both physically and emotionally—that is hard to match at home.

Alameda Post - a map of the state park
Map of southern California showing the location of Anza Borrego Desert State Park, east of San Diego. Map state park visitor guide.

You can’t get there from here

Miley had taken us down some long dirt roads during the week, in remote places like Coyote Canyon, Yaqui Well, and Rockhouse Canyon. So perhaps we were feeling a little overconfident when we continued past the Arroyo Salado primitive campground on our last afternoon in the park, looking for a place to set up camp. All of the good camping sites closer to the main road seemed to be occupied, so we decided to continue just a little further.

There’s no warning that you are leaving the “normal” dirt road and entering the four-wheel drive dirt road, but we soon found ourselves on a narrower track, heading slightly downhill, with no place to turn around. On top of that, the road was getting bumpier, with more gravel and sand. Hoping to find a wider area to turn around in, I suggested, “Let’s go just a little further.” The only other option would have been to try to back out, which didn’t seem like a great option.

As the minutes went on, no good turnaround spots were appearing. Meanwhile, there were no other people or vehicles around anymore, and the temperature outside was rising above 90 degrees. Not a good place to get stuck. We were kind of between a rock and a hard place: Driving further meant getting further and further into a tough situation, hoping to find a turnaround spot. But trying to turn around now, in a narrow, sandy spot could guarantee getting stuck. What to do? Turning around a heavy, 20-foot van takes a decent amount of space—and we weren’t likely to get that kind of space anytime soon.

Finally, Edie stopped the van, got out, and stepped onto the edges of the road. She said it didn’t seem too bad. We decided to go for it. I got into the driver’s seat, because I feel much less panicky in a situation like this when I’m actually doing something—the illusion of control—rather than standing by. I started a three-point turn by driving up onto the gravelly edge, then backed towards the rocky wall that was close behind us. Due to the small size of the turnaround area, it ended up being more of a five-point turn, with the front wheels spinning and dust and gravel flying everywhere, but eventually we were turned around. Then it was just a matter of negotiating the narrow, sandy road back to the campground, keeping up momentum in order to avoid getting stuck in the uphill sections.

We got back into the primitive campground area just as another couple was leaving their nice camping spot, so we set up camp there and extended our awning to get some shade on that 95-degree day. We spent the afternoon sitting in the shade reading, sipping ice water, taking a short hike, waiting for the sunset, cooler temps, and the golden hour for photography. We basked in the relief of having escaped a hairy situation, one we knew we could’ve gotten through, but possibly at great expense and delay.

If you go

The peak season for visiting Anza Borrego Desert State Park is from October 1 through May 31. Outside of those months, the average daily high temperatures often reach over 106 degrees, making camping and hiking more difficult and risky. During our visit we experienced a wide range of conditions, from very hot (mid-90s), to very windy (gusts over 40 mph), to somewhat chilly (50s), to absolutely perfect (78 degrees and calm). When you go out into the great outdoors, you take what Mother Nature is serving, and overall we were very grateful that the conditions allowed us to see so much of the park, and enjoy such an incredible display of desert plants and wildlife.

We’ll be back

Anza Borrego is not one of those “one and done” places that you check off your bucket list after one visit. Like Yosemite National Park, you could return again and again, at different times of year, and continue to discover new things. It has taken millions of years for this landscape to develop, and one can easily spend a lifetime exploring it. I look forward to a future visit to this desert paradise, truly one of our California Treasures. I’ll just be a little more careful about what dirt roads we drive down next time!

For more information, start at the official Anza-Borrego Desert State Park website.

Contributing writer Steve Gorman has been a resident of Alameda since 2000, when he fell in love with the history and architecture of this unique town. Contact him via [email protected]. His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Steve-Gorman.

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