Anza Borrego - day 3
This post is part 3 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
This morning we had a short, quarter mile drive from the campsite to the start of the trail, to the Marshal Home Site which was at the top of Ghost Mountain(Yaquitepec). While the trail marker sign warns that the 1 mile trail is "very strenuous", we didn't find it to be so. Either we're far better seasoned hikers than average, or they were just trying to warn people away for legal reasons. Either way, while much of the trail does go straight up the side of the 2000ft mountain, its mostly rocky stairs & switchbacks, and was never a physical challenge for any of us. Once at the summit, we had this amazing view of the valley directly to the south. The trail, and the summit had a wide variety of desert flora, including ocatillo, barrel cactus, and hedgehog cactus. After about 75 years, there's not much left of the home.
Next we drove about 2 miles northeast to the petroglyph trailhead. This one mile trail is primarily a gentle uphill slope that ends at a single boulder with the faint red petroglyphs on the side. To be honest, it was a bit underwhelming. The drive back out of Blair Valley was a bit of an adventure, as we ended up on a road that was somewhat more difficult than I would have liked for a passenger car. It was steep, with some exposed rocks, but with Denise's guidance we managed it ok.
Afterwards, we continued our drive southward on S2. We originally planned to setup camp at the Mountain Palm Springs primitive campsite, but when we got there, it turned out to be little more than a flat, exposed, sandy parking lot. To make matters worse, it already had 3 RV's setup. Thankfully, there was another, somewhat less primitive, campground just 2 miles further south at Bow Willow. Bow Willow looked much much nicer. It actually had picnic tables, fire rings, potable water & a vault toilet, all for \$7/night. After driving around for a bit, we decided on campsite #9. We were the first to arrive, although two other groups of 2 arrived later on. It was rather warm, as we were in a very exposed valley. Right before parking the car it was already 85F at 2PM. After getting the tent setup, I went on a walk to explore the area a bit more. I climbed out of the canyon to a ridge that gave me a view(note our yellow tent about half way down, and to the left) of much of the valley to the east. The ground varied between course, sun bleached sand and a concrete hard amalgam of sand and mud. The landscape was the standard mixture of cacti, ocotillo, sage brush & cresotote. The sunset was gorgeous yet again.
That night was a bit warmer than the previous night in Blair Valley, but not quite as warm as Arroyo Salado. We were treated to the coyote choir's performance as well.
This post is part 3 of the "socal-2008" series: