The last day we spent in Anza Borrego was going to be a big one. Although the road system we were on connected to where we were headed for the day, I wasn’t too excited about the one way Diablo Dropoff so we got started on our trip up Fish Creek Wash by heading through Borrego Valley to the Elephant Tree loop trail. The sun felt pretty scorching by 9 am, but it seemed as though the flowers were loving it, and they carpeted the entire wash we followed on our first hike of the day.
Note: This story is part of the series South to Spring. Click the link or head to our timeline for the other chapters of the trip.
We didn’t see many elephant trees on the elephant tree loop, one to be exact, but it was quite a specimen. It was probably ten times the size of the trees we had seen at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
The real star of the show for this hike were the blooming cacti, the first we spotted on the trip. Prickly pear, fishhook and cholla were all in bloom.
Up the Fish Creek Wash we went, into the Split Mountain gorge. The layers of rock here are just something you need to see with your own eyes to appreciate. The size of the rock imbedded in the breccia is nearly unbelievable. To think of the events that laid down these layers is nearly impossible to imagine. We later learned that at least some of these layers were formed in one big rock and mudslide event travelling up to seven miles from the west. You could spend days here wondering about the history of events that laid down the sedimentary rock here.
Once we passed through Split Mountain we arrived at our next hike, the Wind Caves. These are formed in a much finer layer of sandstone we would encounter again just a bit further up the road. The views up the wash showed off the expanse of the badlands.
Back at the truck we headed further up the wash leaving any sort of crowd behind. We eventually arrived at Sandstone Canyon.
We drove nearly to the end, luckily we had the entire canyon to ourselves and didn’t need to negotiate passing another vehicle in the narrow canyon. We found a wide spot and parked, and walked up the canyon, knowing what we’d find in the next couple bends. We didn’t feel like we needed to squeeze through the narrow spot and leave a piece of the truck behind, only to turn around and squeeze through again.
The vertical sandstone walls were impressive and it was cool down here out of the hot spring sun we hadn’t quite acclimated to yet. The truck was waiting for us upon our exploration of the rest of the canyon.
Our last sight to see for the day was just a bit further up the wash, the Mud Palisades. As a kid I could have had days of fun here with a shovel and a garden hose speeding natures work along.
It would be interesting to be here during a big rainstorm, to see the mud wash down forming new fissures and transforming the landscape.
We traveled back down the wash with our days exploration, along with the trip, coming to a close, and we settled into camp for another night.
We had set out south to find spring. I think we met with some success and we found so much more along the way.
Now all we had was the road north, and thoughts started to wander to where our next trip would take us.
“Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.“– John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley
“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving” – Lau Tzu, Tao Te Ching
May your next journey be your destination.
