California’s Anza-Borrego is a must-see anytime you’re in the area—anytime, that is, except for summer, when temperatures frequently reach triple digits. Visits to this desert state park are ideal in the late winter/early spring when the wildflowers are in bloom.

Anza-Borrego attracts a crowd during wildflower season, but since it is California’s largest state park, visitors can find plenty of room for spreading out and even finding solitude. The park encompasses 600,00 acres of deep, palm-filled canyons, endless panoramas, the baldest of badlands and soaring crags. 

My husband, Mike, and I arrived at Anza-Borrego in wildflower season and were awed by the beautiful colors. Campgrounds were crowded and we got one of the last campsites available. Fortunately, things quieted down on Monday and Tuesday as we drove the park roads and hiked its trails in search of barrel cactus, California primrose, monkey flowers and other beauties.

There’s no charge for entering the park, but you must pay a day-use fee to explore Borrego Palm Canyon and the Vern Whitaker Horse Camp. The park has campgrounds with drinking water, toilets, showers and picnic tables; some sites even sport a shade ramada. All of the developed campgrounds charge a camping fee. If you want to camp in the backcountry, there is no charge. If you camp in the backcountry, be sure to stay 100 feet away from any water source, bring a metal container to hold your fire (no wood-gathering is permitted), park on the side of the road so others may pass, and do not trample vegetation or drive over geological formations. Of course, you must also pack out what you pack in.

Starting Place
The visitor center is a good resource to learn more about this vast park. Volunteer naturalists give talks, most of which last about 40 minutes and are held outdoors or in an air-conditioned classroom, depending on the temperature.  Programs provide information on the park’s plants, wildlife, fossils, geology and much more. Nature walks often begin at the visitor center as well. The walks are easy (about a half-mile) and last about 45 minutes. Campground campers can attend free evening programs.  Campfire programs are held primarily on weekends at Borrego Palm Canyon and Bow Willow campgrounds. 

Some of the park’s many roads are paved, but about 500 miles are not. We traveled both paved and unpaved roads, happening upon carpets of wildflowers and ocotillo with blazing red flowers. We saw roadrunners racing and black-tailed jackrabbits bounding across the desert. We had hoped to see peninsular bighorn sheep, an endangered animal that is the park’s namesake (borrego means sheep in Spanish), but we searched for them on rocky slopes above the desert floor to no avail.

One morning we made a side trip to Font’s Point. Here we watched the golden rays of light embrace the Borrego Badlands. We felt the magic of the park, the silence of solitude, the sweet whisper of a gentle breeze, the squeaking of wings as a lone raven flapped by. We were a mere 75 miles east of San Diego, but a world away from rush-hour traffic and the millions who live there. 

Huge Transformation
As we traveled the scattered segments of the park, hopscotching through both private and state lands, we found isolated pockets where hardy souls live year-round. Few choose to endure the summer heat to make this their year-round home, but each year more than one million visitors are drawn to the park—one of the richest living museums in the country. The landscape today is much different than it was thousands of years ago when it was lush, well-wooded, well-watered and probably teeming with animal life. But when the first Spanish explorers arrived in the 1700s, they found a dry climate, much like that of today.

As in many parts of the West, gold seekers made their claim here, with thousands traveling the Southern Emigrant Trail in search of enough gold nuggets to last a lifetime. Soon after, the Butterfield Overland Stageline carved a piece of history, one that would extend to San Francisco. Later still, cattlemen and prospectors tried to master a land too rugged and savage to control.

Today, the park has a great variety of animal life—225 species of birds, 60 reptiles and amphibians, and more than 60 different mammals. Plant life is varied as well. Borrego Canyon harbors one of the park’s 25 native groves of California fan palms, the largest palm in North America. These palms require a continual supply of water and are found in desert oases from Death Valley to Baja California. The oases attract a variety of birds, reptiles and mammals, making them pleasant spots for human visitors as well. 

Another must is a stop at Carrizo Badlands Overlook at the south end of the park, just a few yards off paved Highway S-2. From here a carpet of yellow and purple wildflowers painted the foreground for us while we looked beyond to the badlands, where sabertooths and mastodons roamed more than a million years ago. 

Interesting Trails
In addition to driving quiet roads, we hiked many trails during our stay. Ask if we had a favorite and I’d have to say no. We enjoyed them all, mostly because they were so very different. We hiked up the Borrego Palm Canyon Nature Trail on a hot spring day.  Along the way we found Gambel’s quail, house wrens, and at the end of the trail we found a native palm grove with shade, small waterfalls and cascades and plenty of water for cooling off.  We also hiked around Coyote Canyon and found wildflowers, as well as white-lined Sphinx caterpillars, and the friendliest of lark sparrows and Costa’s hummingbirds, too. One day we visited Blair Valley, where we hiked the Morteros Trail.  We found Indian grinding holes in the boulders along the easy trail and discovered a pictograph-covered boulder, where we marveled at ancient artwork.

We visited Elephant Tree Discovery Trail on the hottest of our days at Anza-Borrego, but it was worth enduring the heat to see the rare elephant tree as well as wildflowers galore and some interesting insects called blister beetles. What fun we had sitting and watching the beetles collect pollen and mate. 

The Tamarisk Grove area offers up two lovely trails. The first trail led us to Yaqui Well.  The well was dry and is supposed to remain so, but the walk there was laden with wildflowers as well as flowering century plants.  Near the dry well we also saw a pair of nesting Phainopeplas.  The second hike was on Cactus Loop Trail, which offered many varieties of flowering cacti, most of which were blooming and in full glory.

Visitors often ask park employees when the wildflowers will be in bloom, but that is a difficult question to answer.  Blooms depend on the sun, wind, water and temperature.  Winter rains are needed in small doses. Too little rain means poor seed germination; too much rain and the seeds may rot or wash away. Temperature is critical as well. Warm days are good. Hot days means parched and scorched seeds and seedlings. Desert winds matter, too. No one knows the prime time for wildflowers from year to year, as each wildflower season is unique, but typically you’ll see them start to bloom from late February through March. 

Visit Anza-Borrego when the wildflowers are in bloom and you’ll find the park as awesome as we did.

Donna Ikenberry is a photographer and writer who lives in South Fork, Colorado.

IF YOU GO:
Visitors can enter the park from several directions, but the best place to begin is at the visitor center, less than two miles west of Borrego Springs on Palm Canyon Drive. The center is open only on the weekends during the summer, and because of state budget cuts, the summer schedule has been extended this year through October. Normally, the visitor center is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily from October through May.  

For the latest in wildflower news, call the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Wildflower Hotline at (760) 767-4684. You can also check out the website at parks.ca.gov and click on Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

Ask at the Visitor Center for driving tour guides as well as nature trail guides.  For more information, contact Anza-Borrego Desert State Park at (760) 767-4205. Campground reservations may be made at (800) 444-7275 or reserveamerica.com.  Dogs are welcome in the campgrounds and on the many dirt roads in the park, but they must be on at least a six-foot leash. Dogs are not allowed on trails.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed