Many people never see a Bighorn out in the Anza Borrego Desert. The once thriving Bighorn population has now dwindled to somewhere around 280 by official Park estimates. The Bighorns blend in very well with their environment and will stand still for hours making them impossible to see. On two previous occasions we have been lucky enough to encounter the elusive Bighorn. The first time was two hours into a hike to the Goat Canyon Trestle, while our second encounter was with a bachelor herd of Bighorn rams near Indian Hill in the southern end of Anza Borrego. Our latest encounter did not require a 3 hour hike and in fact occurred when Lin... [More]

I signed Mary and I up for a day trip with the Anza-Borrego Foundation to Harper Cabin in the central part of the Anza Borrego Desert. My reasoning for signing up for an organized tour was two-fold. First the hike was being led by Mark Jorgensen who probably knows the Anza Borrego Desert better than anybody, and second while we know the southern area of the Anza Borrego Desert fairly well, we are not very familiar with the central area. We are "down-southers" according to Mark.  The tour was set to leave at 8AM from the Tamarisk Grove campground so with our neighbor's Don and Kathleen in tow we packed sandwiches, filled water bottles, l... [More]

Just when I feel like I have seen everything there is to see in the Anza Borrego Desert, I read a BLOG or catch a book entry about someplace new and exciting. This time around it was an abandoned railroad camp in the southern end of the park. The ruins are almost 100 years old and were built to support the construction of the Carrizo Gorge Railway. According to Jerry Schaad's book, the railroad camp ruins are located NW of Indian Hill so I felt pretty confident we could find them. With this fresh on our minds, we packed up the LandCruiser in the late morning on Sunday and headed east. The straight week of heavy rain in San Diego had also ... [More]