Anza Borrego - day 1
This post is part 1 of the "socal-2008" series:
- Anza Borrego - day 1
- Anza Borrego - day 2
- Anza Borrego - day 3
- Anza Borrego - day 4
- san diego - day 5
- home - day 6
Today we started our vacation camping trip to Anza Borrego Desert State Park. Anza Borrego is the largest state park in California, and is one of the largest in the US, and sits just north of the California/Mexico border. Since its so far south, we expected a long drive to get there. The route that we took was CA152 east, to CA99 south, to CA58 east, to US395 south, to I15 south, to I215 south, to I15 south, to CA79 south, to S2 south, to S22 south. We actually hit some rather thick fog on CA152 & CA99 in the central valley, but by the time we crossed over the Tehachapi pass, and descended into the Mojave valley, the weather was warm & sunny. The high recorded temperature for the entire 6 day trip was actually while driving through San Bernardino where it hit 87F, although it did get close to that on a few other occasions later on. The approach to the park vistor center on S22 was really deceptive, as there was no indication that we were close to much of anything, and then we turned a bend, and the entire Borrego Valley opened up before us (2000ft below), with the Salton Sea & Chocolate Mountains off on the distant horizon. It took just over 8 hours to get to the visitor center from our house, so we arrived a little after 2PM.
The visitor center itself is just about up to national park standards, with several interpretive exhibits, and a movie theater, with a few short hiking trails outside. We actually stopped in to get some info on primitive camp grounds, since we were sure about conditions or how accessible they'd be in our car. The majority of the park's roads are actually unpaved, with most only fully accessible with high clearance and/or 4x4. While we were originally thinking of camping in either Blair Valley or Yaqui Wells the first night, we ended up changing our plans completely, and going to Arroyo Salado instead, which was significantly closer to the Calcite Mine Rd/Trail that we planned to explore the following morning. The drive from the visitor center to Arroyo Salado from the visitor center along S22 took less than 30 minutes, and wound its way through the town of Borrego Springs. This town was kinda quirky with a mixture of tourist focused shops and desert supply stores. Going to Arroyo Salado turned out to be a great idea, as the campground was just about perfect in every way. First it was relatively small, with great spacing between the sites, and had a vault toilet in a centralized location. Additionally, the weather was perfect. It was warm (even overnight), with virtually no wind. It was a primitive campground, without running water, or other amenities, but that was fine, we didn't care or need them. The temperature upon our arrival just before 4PM was 80F. As its name implies the campground runs along Arroyo Salado, with the individual campsites nestled in the small side canyons and washes. The site that we chose was great. We had some gorgeous views across the valley, plus the sunset. Denise prepared us all a very tasty dinner of quesadillas, after which we cleaned up and got ready for the evening. It was a beautiful evening with a clear sky. Once the sun had gone down fully, we were treated to a sky full of stars, with very little light pollution. Since it was relatively warm overnight (I'm guessing 50sF), we slept fairly well.
Many, many more pictures are here(and eventually here), as well as landscapes here.
This post is part 1 of the "socal-2008" series: