Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

Good morning, my friends. We had such a fun day yesterday. As usual, I took way too many pictures and so I have a lot to tell you. We haven't got a minute to lose, so fill up that cup with whatever your drinking, and let's get started.

Along our way, we stopped at our favorite farm stand and scored some Hass avocados. On the right are limes. They're yellow because they've been allowed to ripen on the tree.

It was a beautiful day with good air quality. There were only a few clouds in the sky, but we just crossed them out.

It's a drive out there from where we are, but very pretty. We passed through huge orange groves.

Also, lots of avocado groves.

This is Lake Henshaw. More often than not, Lake Henshaw is a dry lake bed. You know there's been lots of rain when you find water here.

Looking to the right, you can see where the high water mark is. Even though there's water, it is at a drastically lower level than it has been at other times.

Of course, we saw plenty of this granitic rock.

We pulled out at a viewpoint at the top of the mountain. You can see Borrego Springs, California, off in the distance. The body of water way out there is the Salton Sea.

This plaque was posted at the viewpoint.

Driving on, we saw less rock, and more color...like that we see in Death Valley.

Eventually, we passed into Borrego Springs. The state park is adjacent to the town.

Turning left, we found ourselves at the visitor center.

Here's a little blurb about the park.

The visitor center was an interesting structure. We've visited this park at least two times before, but never the visitor center. It was constructed by digging out the hillside and tucking it into the landscape, then covering it over again.

We could also walk on top of the structure. The benches you see there have tiles around the edges with the names of donors.

This plaque was located there.

Inside, I was on the hunt for a refrigerator magnet. We also thought this was interesting. They poured molten lead into an ant hole to see what it looked like underground. (I don't imagine the ants appreciated this.)

We were wanting to hike "The Slot." I'd learned about it from this newsletter. Just a couple of corrections to that newsletter. First, the elevation change is more like 300 feet, making it far more strenuous than indicated. Second, it was two miles to walk the entire loop. And, third, the day-use fee was for the park. The hike is located inside the park, and so yes, there is a day use fee. For us, it was $9. The newsletter also goes on at some length about how difficult it is to find the trailhead. We were given this map at the visitor center, and we found it with ease.

There was a nature trail outside, and we walked around the loop there before heading to The Slot. This next image is blooming rabbit brush.

This ocotillo was budding out, but not in bloom just yet.

Here are a couple of images I've taken at other times of an ocotillo in bloom.

This is cuparosa.

I'm not sure about these next little cuties. They were tiny...smaller than a dime.

This is phacelia.

We marveled at the fronds on these palm trees. At their feet was a small marshy area where pupfish can be seen. We couldn't find any yesterday.

Okay, and then we drove through Borrego Springs on our way to our hike. Along the way, we saw these giant metal sculptures, placed at random along the way. This first one is an eagle.

This roadrunner and rattlesnake are the newest installations. That woman was kind enough to provide scale.

After some 17 miles, we came to the turn-off for our hike. It was about two miles of dirt road.

Okay, everybody ready? Have you securely tied your hiking boots?

Okay, and this was great fun. Look at these narrow passages.

In this next image, I was standing with my back literally against the wall.

Here, there was a rock slide. If we were to continue on, we had to climb over that big boulder.

On the other side, it was about a four-foot drop to the ground below. I ended up sitting on my butt and sort of sliding down.

Continuing on...

Good thing I lost some weight several years ago.

Check out that leaning tower above Mike.

This wedged rock put us in mind of Aron Ralston. He was the hiker who got pinned when a rock rolled over his hand. After three days, he had to cut off his own hand in order to escape.

There was good signage on the trail. At some places, signs showed the trail with another sign in the distance telling us it was "not a trail."

Our shadow selves were misbehaved as usual. I'll show you in a minute what I'm talking about. They did enjoy the sunshine, though.

Eventually, we left the slot, and then continued along the road back to the parking lot.

The geology of the area was interesting. Notice the bands of color on the hillside in the image below.

Now here's where we take issue with the author of the article I mentioned earlier. The slot passages had taken us down, down, and down. It's a wash, right? And it's not easy to tell from the image below, but we now had to walk up, up, up this nearly-vertical slope.

We were huffing and puffing by the time we reached the top. The views were pretty from there. Notice the diagonal "lift" of the landscape in the image below.

How about these "Swiss cheese" rocks.

In the image below, we could see where we'd come from.

And in the image below, you can see where the trail left the slot. And here's what I'm talking about. See my shadow self in the lower right-hand corner? I told her not to go out there. Did she listen? Of course not. I told her she'd better get a move on because we were approaching the truck. If she wasn't with us when we drove away, we were going to leave her behind.

And, yeah...there's our truck. A sight for sore eyes by this time.

Thankfully, I found a refrigerator magnet, but no shot glass. Oh well. Not every day can be perfect, but this one came pretty close. 

Today, we're kind of in wait-and-see mode. One way or another, we're going to head over to the coast to do some hiking in Torrey Pines State Park. We can also hike the La Jolla Coast Trail. We're in wait-and-see mode because we're waiting to see if our friend will be discharged from the hospital today. If she's feeling up to it, we'd like to visit her. If she's home, we can visit her there. We also need to return a tool Mike borrowed from her husband when he repaired the slide.

So there you go. I've probably yammered on long enough now. I'll leave you to your day, and I'll get on with mine...whatever it may hold.