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Introduction | Attractions and Activities | Travel Basics

Just imagine: You stand on the mountain and look out over the horizon. There is nothing for farther than the eye can see. Heat rises in waves from the desert floor, shimmering in the harsh glare of the sun. You shade your eyes, and as they adjust, you notice that this wilderness is far from barren. Indeed, it teems with life.

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, the largest in California, stretches fifty miles (80.47 kilometers) from north to south and 25 miles (40.23 kilometers) from east to west, across more than 600,000 acres. It is framed by and incorporates the Bucksnort and Santa Rosa Mountain Ranges on the north, the Jacumba Mountains on the South, and the Vallecito and Pinyon Mountains on the west. The Borrego Mountains, to the east, taper into the Carrizo Badlands, then plunge into the Salton Trough. This vast wilderness is divided into seven distinct geographic and geologic regions, each of them unique.

The Anza Region, dominated by Comb's Peak and San Ysidro Peak, both of which exceed 6,000 feet (1,828.8 meters), has some of the most arduous terrain in the park. This is where Coyote Canyon bisects the Bucksnort and Coyote Mountains. The First Child Monument designates Juan Bautista De Anza's original route. Bighorn sheep, wild horses, and coyotes enhance the rugged terrain.

The Blair Valley Region, sandwiched between Granite Mountain and Whale Peak, offers hiking trails, primitive camping, and two-wheel drive accessibility. During the ice age, Blair Lake and Little Blair Valley were connected lakes; now they are dry and separated by a rocky ridge. A dirt road makes an 8-mile (12.87-kilometer) loop around the ridge, passing both dry beds.

The Borrego Badlands Region exhibits four million years of geologic and paleontologic history strewn across a stark landscape. Here are fossilized conglomerates, sandstones, claystones and mudstones that chronicle a variety of landscapes, life form and climates that once existed here. More than 200 years ago, Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza led a band of men, women and mules past Font's Point along the San Felipe Wash enroute to Monterey. The expedition's chaplain described this area as the "sweepings of the earth."

The Bow Willow Region is the southernmost part of Anza-Borrego. It extends from the community of Canebrake southward to the Mexican border. The Emigrant Trail passed through this region that was previously the primary travel route of the Cahuilla Indians en route to their summer home in the Laguna Mountains. They left their mark in the form of bedrock mortars scattered in the hills above Willow Campgrounds.

With sparse vegetation and abundant wildlife, the Fish Creek Region is known as a "geological wonderland." The transformations from desert to marine estuary to Savannah to delta and back to desert over a period of some 20 million years are displayed in beautiful twisting canyons, oddly shaped caves, and raised fossil reefs. Usually dry Fish Creek is subject to seasonal flooding. The pupfish that once were buried here were washed downstream in 1914 to San Sebastian Marsh or into the Salton Sea by a major tropical storm.

The Santa Rosa Region is the most rugged and desolate part of the park. It rises from Palm Wash, below sea level, 8,700 feet (2,651.76 meters) to El Toro Peak. This is not an area for novices, and there are no trails or campgrounds maintained here. Only skilled climbers should attempt Rabbit Peak.

The Tamarisk Grove Region is a mountainous area along the western edge of Anza-Borrego Park, and is regarded by some as the western edge of the Colorado Desert. Mesquite trees surround Yaqui Well, an area renowned for its avian life, including Costas Hummingbirds, Phainopepla, owls, and doves. Ambitious hikers enjoy the wilderness canyons of the Vallecitos.

Are you ready to make this vast and varied wilderness your own?