Jon Grasson has done an excellent job of putting together an awesome resource for Desert lovers everywhere. Dezert Magazine, an online periodical, is reminiscent of the printed Desert Magazine that ceased publication in 1985 after 40 + years of circulation . I was honored when John asked to include one of our blog entries in the first issue. Check it out if you have a chance.   Best, Bob

Not that I am terribly surprised, but I was hopeful that Forest Supervisor Metz would show some backbone and stand up to SDG&E / Sempra. Unfortunately this was not the case and Supervisor Metz caved to political and corporate pressure and agreed to let SDG&E route the Sunrise Powerlink through the Cleveland National Forest. This is a sad day for San Diego and anyone who likes to get out and enjoy nature with out the tell-tale signs of man. The character of the Cleveland National Forest will be forever changed due to corporate greed, deceitful tactics and the unwillingness of the US ... [More]

April 04, 2010 The girls over at DzrtGrls.com forwarded me some great pictures from  the recent 7.2 earthquake. The quake itself occured just over the border in Mexicali on April 4, 2010 and apparently shook things up pretty well in Anza Borrego. These pictures are from the Fishcreek / Sandstone Canyon area and are from a post on the Ford Truck Enthusiast forum. We missed this by one day on our recent trip to the Arroyo Tapiado Mud Caves. What you should take away from these pictures is that camping in a narrow canyon is a very bad idea. There are more pictures and a trail report... [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]

What I love about living in San Diego is that within two hours you can leave the coast, drive over the mountains and then drop down into the desert. Incredible diversity in my opinion.  With that in mind, I decided to take the day off work and check on the wildflowers out in the Anza Borrego desert. My preferred area of Borrego is the southern section where you can get away from the crowds, hike up a trail and be completely immersed in the solitude of the Desert.   Driving up the S2 I knew I was in for a great show. The road was lined with Desert Dandelions, Lupine amd B... [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]

In the small desert town of Ocotillo, CA the winds may be changing. Pattern Energy, a San Francisco based energy company is proposing to turn 15,000 acres of public lands bordering the Anza Borrego Desert State Park into a 561 megawatt wind farm with 240 wind turbines. Unfortunately for the small town of Ocotillo and the Imperial Valley, little would be gained as the power would be funneled to San Diego over the infamous Sunrise Powerlink. John Calaway, Pattern Energy director of wind development states that the area would benefit from 400 construction jobs during the two year construction ... [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]

SDG&E has scheduled a series of "Community Council" meetings in communities that will be affected by construction of the Sunrise Powerlink. In their words the purpose is to "keep the community informed so that accurate information is available and inconveniences can be kept to a minimum." If Alpine is any indication of "keeping the community informed" then SDG&E has not been doing its' due diligence. Many Alpine residents who attended Monday nights Community Council meeting still feel like they are being left in the dark about the  undergrounding portion which will run under Alpi... [More]

It looks to be a great year for wildflowers out in the Anza Borrego desert due to the record rains we had in January. We are planning on heading out this coming Valentine's weekend to scout out some areas. From what I have been reading, late February into mid March will be the peak, so make your plans to head on out. This year I am extra excited since we finally picked up a decent camera. Hopefully you will be able to tell by the new pictures we upload. I am hoping to report back Monday so check back.  For now enjoy these pictures from our previous flower hunting trips. Anza-Borrego De... [More]

I spent a couple hours Saturday, helping the ECCAC get the word out to members of the Lakeside community about the Sunrise Powerlink . The East County Community Action Committee has been doing a great job of informing back country communities about the destructive path of this project. What amazed me was the number of people who had no knowledge of the project and its' route through El Monte Valley and other protected, open-spaced habitats of San Diego's backcountry. Many east county residents feel they have been blindsided by SDG&E and are now having this project dumped in their backya... [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]

Although the Sunrise Powerlink has been re-routed to avoid the Anza Borrego Desert State Park, the battle continues for many residents of San Diego's backcountry. One such community, Alpine is being faced with having 6 miles of  12 ' trenches dug along its' main artery to accomodate the 2 parallel 230KV lines. Representatives from SDG&E  state that the "undergrounding"  of the Alpine portion of the Sunrise Powerlink, will take two years to install; one year for the conduits and another year to pull and splice the massive cables. According to Sa... [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]

Summer temperatures in Anza Borrego Desert State Park [More]

Even though the legality of the Sunrise Powerlink is still being questioned, SDG&E is wasting no time in sending survey crews out along the proposed route. In some cases,  according to this KUSI video they are using threats and coercion to gain access to private property. Check out this "Turko Files" video from KUSI (You need Flash Player)

Even though the Anza Borrego Desert State park has been spared from the destructive path of the Sunrise Powerlink ; the battle is far from over.  SDG&E's Southern route goes through portions of Cleveland National Forest as well as land under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management. Formerly untouched areas such as the Carrizo Gorge Wilderness Area will forever be marred by 150 foot steel towers. Wilderness aside, what about the East County residents who live in the rural San Diego backcountry? It is estimated that the Sunrise Powerlink will affect 3000 east S... [More]

If the Governor has his way the Anza-Borrego Desert will be off limits due to state budget cuts. Anza Borrego is on the chopping block along with 219 other parks in the California State Parks system. According to an article in the Union Tribune, the parks being targeted do not have enough visitors to offset the costs associated with keeping them open. Governor Schwarzenegger's budget would cut $213 million from the state parks budget over the next two years. So let me get this right, Californians who have had to trim back on their vacation budgets can no longer take a weekend mini-vacation... [More]

If you are local to San Diego don't forget to stop by Hazy Meadows Ranch in Lakeside on Saturday May 30 from 11:00AM to 4:30 PM. The fine folks over at the East County Community Action Coalition are putting on a awesome fund raiser to help with the legal expenses in the fight against the Sunrise Powerlink. There will be fantastic live entertainment during the event along with some great raffle prizes.     The Hazy Meadow Ranch is located at  15466 El Monte Rd in Lakeside. Please see flyer below for more information. Download Flyer (135.72 kb)  

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]

I just caught this article in the San Diego Union Tribune giving Sempra a big pat on the back for expanding its' solar presence in the Nevada desert. While this looks all warm, fuzzy and green on the surface we have to take a step back and look at the shortcomings of this approach. Once again the Desert is being used as a sacrifice zone. We will need more transmission lines to get this power to the population centers. It maintains Sempra's control of energy production and distribution to the consumer.   Environmental issues aside, we as consumers ... [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]