MuMu the FJ40 Land Cruiser conquers the Squeeze in Anza Borrego Pulled this one out of the archives.  Fast forward 17 years later, we still own "MuMu" the Land Cruiser but unfortunately she has been retired to the garage with the occasional trip to the grocery store. :)

"Looks like we have some pretty thick fog", Mary commented as we made our way east past Alpine towards Anza Borrego. What started out as an overcast morning on the coast transformed into a damp, drizzly mist that shrouded the freeway. Lucky for us, as we started our descent into the desert town of Ocotillo, the fog lifted and the mountains blocked any further advance of the wet weather. The S2 highway was deserted on this late Monday morning as we headed north towards the Indian Gorge turnoff. The Ocotillo plants swayed in the wind adding motion to an otherwise still desert morning. The... [More]

We left Leucadia on a damp, foggy winter morning in hopes of enjoying some clear desert skies. Our destination was the mud caves at Arroyo Tapiado in the Southern Anza Borrego Desert. The Arroyo Tapiado Mud Caves are the result of centuries of rain and flash floods which over time have formed an intricate labrynth of  tunnels , sink holes and slot canyons.  While we have been out to the Arroyo Tapiado Mud Caves a handful of times, this time the plan was to visit some of the caves we had not yet explored. Once we arrived we established our "base-camp", donned headlamps and ent... [More]

Snapped a closeup of a Monarch Butterfly while we were camping in Carrizo Gorge on Thanksgiving. We also managed to mount the Maggiolina Rooftop Tent onto Mary's Toyota Tacoma which takes a little bit of tweaking. :)    

Borrego Days marks the start of the desert season in Anza Borrego. Temperatures are beginning to drop from their summer highs allowing hikers, campers and 4-wheelers to return and enjoy the beautiful Anza Borrego Desert.  Unlike most of our trips to Anza Borrego, the Maggiolina Rooftop tent, propane stove and other various types of expedition gear were left behind. We had an invite to stay with friends in Borrego Springs at their beautiful rancho style home. (Thanks Jon and Elena)  After a quick morning hike along the old De Anza trail, Mary and I headed over to the Borrego Days fe... [More]

 After driving out to Ocotillo to voice my concerns over the proposed Ocotillo express Wind Farm, I came to realize that the  Bureau of Land Management's definition of "public input" was a bit inconsistent with mine. Representatives from the BLM, Imperial County officials and Pattern Energy were all given center stage, but when it came time for Ocotillo residents and others to voice their concerns, the presentation quickly came to an end.  We were told that this was an informational meeting only and comments would only be accepted via email and letters. Personally I ... [More]

At an Elevation of 6533 feet/ 1991 meters, Hot Springs Mountain has the distinction of being the tallest mountain in San Diego. It tops San Diego's next highest peak, Cuyamaca Mountain, by a mere twenty one feet. The amazing thing about Hot Springs Mountain, located on the Los Coyotes reservation, is that the peak is accessible by a high clearance vehicle preferably with 4-Wheel Drive. For our ascent, we chose to hike up the old jeep trail leaving our vehicle at the campground 2000 feet below the summit. Large fields of yellow wildflowers and daisies lined the trail as we trekked upwards. T... [More]

This started out as one of those trips that looked like it might not happen.  First there was the over anxious border patrol agent that hassled me at the Mortero Wash checkpoint. I am not sure why he singled me out? Perhaps it was the combination of the sunglasses, beard and the Lazy Lizard baseball cap that aroused his suspicions?    Next as I pulled off at Indian Gorge, Daren was heading out in his big Dodge diesel looking a little stressed. OK sure I was an hour late (sorry Daren) but this looked like something else. He explained that while on a short morning hike, he got s... [More]

We did a quick overnight trip to Anza Borrego to check on the wildflowers and to do a little hiking. We were excited to find some Monkeyflower, Sand Verbena, Desert Pincushion, Desert Dandelions and a few blooming barrel cactuses. I will have to say the big winners are the Ocotillo and the Chuparosa. I have never seen such amazing Ocotillo blooms! The tips range from a flaming red to a bright orange and they are all over the southern Anza Borrego Desert. The Chuparosa bush, a hummingbird favorite, has also been quite prolific in the southern areas and worth checking out. I think t... [More]

The morning fog that was shrouding the coast, finally let up as we dropped down into Santee from the Mission trails summit. We were driving out to Anza Borrego to meet up with our hiking buddy Daren for a hike out to Inner Pasture. A majority of our hike would be just west of the Anza Borrego State Park on BLM administered lands.   Besides being one of the more isolated, beautiful regions of the Anza Borrego desert; the area is also a corridor for immigrant traffic, a fact we would soon substantiate by the clothing and water bottles discarded along the trail. First thing we noticed as w... [More]

What I love about living in San Diego is that I can be walking our dog Diesel on the beach in the morning and an hour and a half later be on a snow covered road about to drop down into the Anza Borrego Desert.  Granted the snow part is somewhat rare, but usually a few times a year the conditions will be just right to transform our local mountains into a winter wonderland.  As we approached the Sunrise Highway turnoff, we considered abandoning our Anza Borrego desert plans and taking a detour up to Mount Laguna to enjoy the snow. A quick glance at the hundreds of cars lined up to ge... [More]

My overnight Anza Borrego wildflower scouting trip began with a stop at New Leaf Biofuels in Barrio Logan. New Leaf is currently the only location in San Diego where you can buy B99 Bio-Diesel. I filled up 10 Scepter Gas Cans (50 gallons), helped Danny load them into the LandCruiser and headed east hoping to find a campsite before dark. By the time I arrived in Mortero Wash, I barely had enough light left to crank up the Maggiolina Tent, pull out the chair and open up a cold Bohemia. The desert sky was clear which was good and bad. The good is that I counted 5 or 6 shooting s... [More]

I had barely rinsed off the dirt and dust from our Thanksgiving trip to Carrizo Gorge, when we found ourselves heading back out to Anza Borrego to meet up with a couple friends for a day hike. Our destination this time, was at the opposite end of the Anza Borrego Desert, a remote area called Rockhouse Valley. While the adjacent canyon, informally titled Rockhouse Canyon, shares its' namesake with our favorite hiking area to the south, the two areas are worlds apart. Rockhouse Canyon "north" is a curving, narrow canyon with vertical walls on both sides which eventually opens up to th... [More]

Our annual Anza Borrego Thanksgiving camping trip is something we always look forward to. While it sounds like a big hassle to lug all the food, tables, barbecues and drinks out to the desert, the rewards of sunshine and desert solitude are worth it. Nightime temperatures were in the the low 30's, but the Maggiolina Rooftop Tent kept us pretty warm. We camped in  Carrizo Gorge, which is our favorite area of Anza Borrego, and did day hikes up the East Fork as well as Four Frogs Canyon.The Ocotillo are simply amazing this time of year. During the dry summer months the Ocotillo resemb... [More]

     High up on a ridge overlooking the vast expanse of Anza Borrego 's Indian Valley is a room size rock shelter once used by Native Americans to honor and perhaps foretell the coming of the summer solstice.  To the Native Americans, the sun was all powerful and dictated when crops would ripen and perhaps when the time had come to move to higher more hospitable elevations. To monitor the arrival of "the longest day of the year" native american priests or shamans would paint pictographs which would illuminate at the right time of the year on the rising sun... [More]

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 r... [More]

If you really want to escape the summer beach crowds of San Diego, but still want to play in the sand, you could always take a 2+ hour drive east to the Anza Borrego Desert. Our motivation was simple, June gloom had continued two weeks into July, shrouding the coast in clouds. We had forgotten what sunshine felt like. Mind you this is not journey for those who can't take a little heat. When we pulled up at the Carrizo Gorge turnoff, temperatures were already close to 100' and promised to rise throughout the morning. Suprisingly, we were not the only foolhardy souls out in Anza Borrego bravi... [More]

Tucked away in the southern end of the Anza Borrego Desert is an engineering marvel that, due to its' remoteness, has only been viewed by a relatively small number of people. The Goat Canyon Trestle was built in 1932 after an earthquake collapsed one of the tunnels of the Carrizo Gorge section of the San Diego Arizona Railroad. At two hundred feet tall and 750 feet long, it remains to this day the longest, tallest curved wooden trestle ever built in the United States. The sheer ruggedness of the mountainous terrain as well as the searing desert temperatures warranted the name "The Impossible ... [More]

I left early Wednesday morning with the plan to do a solo day hike out to the Goat Canyon Trestle in the southern Anza Borrego desert. According to weather reports the rain that was hitting the coast wasn't suppose to hit Ocotillo until Thursday. Sure there were high wind warnings for  the deserts and the mountains but hey, what's a little wind ? As I began to drive up the grade past Pine Valley for my eventual descent into the desert, I quickly realized that this was not an ordinary Spring storm. Rain had quickly turned to snow as I approached the Sunrise Highway turn-off. Sn... [More]

Join David, a member of our Anza Borrego Forums, as he hikes up the Wilson Trail for a solo overnight backpack trip. The trail to Pinyon Ridge is called the Wilson Trail. It follows an old Jeep road for about 5 miles and ends in a beautiful little valley just to the east of Wilson Peak. This is the sign that greets you as you pull off S-22 and head for the trail head. More...

04/04/2010 Tucked away in the Anza Borrego Desert State Park is a place that seems to have more similarities with moon, or at least what I would imagine the moon to look like. Arroyo Tapiado or "Mud Wall Wash" is an area of southern Anza Borrego that has some of the most extensive mud caves in the world. A few of the dark, twisting passages can be hundreds of feet long ending in rooms with two story ceilings, while other areas require you to suck in your gut and crawl on all fours. Archaeological excavations have uncovered fossils of mammoths, sabre-tooth tigers and other animals dating b... [More]

03/25/2010 The wildflowers and cactus blooms have arrived in the southern Anza Borrego Desert When my sister Linda viewed last week's wildflower update post she insisted I take her on a mid-week flower hunting trip. After much arm twisting I agreed and here is what we found. We had this great encounter with a couple of Jackrabbits in Indian Valley. Once they realized that we weren't a threat they chased each other around the LandCruiser for a good ten minutes. Linda commented that it was probably some rabbit mating ritual being Spring and all.  Check the rest of the Wi... [More]

Deep in the rugged expanse of Carrizo Gorge in the Anza Borrego desert, there is a small cave of pictographs that few have ever seen. The area is surrounded by large unstable mountains, choked with catclaw, and littered with large truck size boulders. The Carrizo Gorge also marks the transition from the Colorado Desert to the dry San Diego coastal mountains. We have visited the area numerous times. At one point Mary and I tried to scout a route to Goat Canyon along Carrizo Gorge. While this is doable, we were eventually turned back by thick groves of catclaw that proceeded to tear at our skin... [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... [More]

I took another scouting trip to the south end of the Anza Borrego Desert to see how the wildflowers and cactus blooms were progressing. It looks like we have another couple weeks for a peak bloom in the southern areas. There are many cacti with buds that are ready to explode. This beautiful Barrel Cactus near Indian Hill was getting a jump start on its neighbors. We also noticed a few small Fishook Cacti with tiny rings of flowers. Penstemon pseudospectabilis(?) nestled between the rocks. Unfortunately on our search for wildflowers near Arroyo Seco del Diablo and Arroyo Tapiado we n... [More]

Mary and I left early Sunday for a day trip out to Anza Borrego. Our destination was Piedras Grandes in the southern end of the park. While Saturday's heavy rains had  dissuaded us from doing an overnight trip, Sunday had dawned with blue skies and warm temperatures. Perfect weather for an Anza Borrego trip. After a quick stop at the Subway in Jacumba we dropped down into the desert around 9:30 AM. We drove up the S2 scanning the vast desert for any sign of desert wildflowers. A few budding Ocotillo and some yellow Brittle Bush flowers but not much else blooming. As we bounced ... [More]

   Our trip began with a late afternoon stop at the Lazy Lizard in Ocotillo. Mary and I had planned to head straight out to the campsite but Linda would have none of it. "We are stopping at the Lazy Lizard, aren't we ?",  she inquired as we started to drive up the S2. Hard to argue with that so, three beers, two t-shirts and a few dollars lighter the three of us were heading up the sandy washboard road of Mortero Wash. After our last  failed attempt to find the railroad construction camp, I was determined to try again. This time I was lucky since recently I had b... [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 ... [More]

Our annual Thanksgiving tradition is to spend Thanksgiving with our family and then head out to Anza Borrego the following day for a couple days of desert fun. This year turned out to be one of the more memorable trips we have had, so sit back and I will try to explain what transpired. Friday morning found Mary and I heading out to Carrizo Gorge to meet Jan, Gina and crew at one of our favorite campsites. Jan had left the night before to get the Imu Pit ready. Imu Pit ? you ask. Well yes, this year after 5 successful years of grilled turkey perfection we opted to try the Polynesian metho... [More]

Believe it or not a week after my solo Torote Canyon trip I found myself camping in Mortero Wash with Mary. We were actually trying to scout out some places for our post Thanksgiving trip. Hilights of our overnight trip were : Flooding in the desert town of Ocotillo The mystery box cars in Mortero Wash Incredible red moon rising over the Salton Sea  Numerous jackrabbit sightings in Carrizo Creek.  Pie in Julian on the way out. :-) The evening temperature was perfect and the semi-full red moon was surreal. Wish I could figure out how to take moon pictures with my cheap Ca... [More]

While most people were trying to escape the record high temperatures by heading to the beach, I decided  to head out to Anza Borrego for the day. This trip would be solo since my claims of a fun desert adventure fell on deaf ears. Mary simply wasn't buying it. She said something about triple digit temperatures and that was that. She was right, the weather had been over 110' for the past week out in Ocotillo but that failed to dissuade me.  I dropped down into Ocotillo around noon figuring if I was going to experience the desert in the summer why not do it at midday when temps w... [More]

In an effort to escape the Memorial Day beach crowds, Mary and I left Leucadia and pointed the LandCruiser east. Our destination was Combs Peak located in the northern end of Anza Borrego. At 6193 ft or 1888 m Combs Peak has the distinction of being the highest mountain in the Anza Borrego Desert State Park as well as one of the highest, most remote peaks in San Diego County.   For reference here is a list of the top 10 mountain peaks in San Diego  Rank Peak Name ft m 1. Hot Springs Mountain 6533 1991 2. Cuyamaca Peak 6512 1985 3. Mount Laguna 6378... [More]

We left the coast on a sunny Sunday morning and pointed the LandCruiser east out to one of our favorite areas of Anza Borrego. A quick stop at Starbucks and Subway to fuel up and we were our way. This time we had a couple of Anza newbies, our friends Steve and Haeja. Late April the temperatures begin to approach triple digits out in the Anza Borrego Desert so we knew this was one of our last trips of the season. Our plan was to hike from the East Fork of Carrizo Gorge out to the seldom visited Carrizo Palms. The palms are located in a remote location below the Carrizo Gorge Railway and are a... [More]

The Anza Borrego wild flower season is coming to a close so we decided to take a day trip out to explore the Canyon Sin Nombre area with a group of friends. Canyon Sin Nombre translates to "Canyon Without a Name" which makes it sound a bit more ominous then it really is. Sure there are some deep sand sections and some boulders to negotiate, but in general a stock 4WD can traverse this section of the Carrizo Badlands without any problems.   We left behind overcast skies on the coast and by the time we reached the Tecate divide the sun was shining and the sky was a brilliant blue.... [More]

What started out as a quick day trip to see the wildflower bloom in Anza Borrego, turned into a trip back in time. Our original plan was to do some hiking and take pictures of wildflowers but at the last minute I decided we would try to find the pictographs at Indian Hill. There are numerous sources on how to find this magical place but most are sketchy at best. Many feel that the less exposure this area gets the better. That being said this is not a post on “How do I find Indian Hill and the pictographs?” . Rather it is a virtual tour of the area that you can take from the co... [More]