Anza-Borrego Part 7 — So. Many. People.

March 16, 2019.

Hills of the Moon Wash turned out to be a great place to spend the night — the the air was calm, just a light breeze that kept us cool and comfortable through the night. The surrounding hills also afforded plenty of privacy, and afforded us a bit of relief from the bright moon, once it got below their ridge lines.

Of course, the hills — and lack of any clouds in the sky — also meant that we weren’t going to see the horizon at sunrise, instead settling for the orange glow that accompanies the waking of a new day.

A few quick photos and I was back in bed — our agenda for the day a lighter one than the previous day, and hopefully one that would afford us a bit slower pace so we could really enjoy our last full day in the park.

We did some reading and discussed our plans for the morning a bit before getting up for the second time, this time with a bit more light in the sky, the muddy badlands around us just starting to take on their colorful hue.

Today would be the day that we’d once again try — and finally succeed — installing the stargazerless rain fly on our CVT @CascadiaTents Mt. Shasta, hopefully solving our problem of the rain fly never drying out because the plastic windows never absorb heat from the sun once and for all. I got going on that while @mrs.turbodb prepped breakfast — Cheerios and strawberries — for us to enjoy as we watched the sun rise into the sky.

Breakfast done, our plan for the day was to head toward town and a refuel, and then to a few trails in the north of the park. Two of the trails, we’d previously planned — Lower Coyote Canyon and Sheep Canyon. These were trails that others before us had mentioned as “not to miss,” so we wanted to make sure we could get out to see what they were all about. Turns out, we added Middle Willows Wash to this trail system as well — which we’ll get to in a bit. We also decided that we’d add a couple new trails since we had time for it, and Rockhouse Canyon and Butler Canyon sounded pretty cool in Anza-Borrego Desert Region: Your Complete Guide to the State Park — a book we’d brought along for history and descriptions of the places we visited.

So, a little later than usual, but still early enough that we were in no rush, we headed out of the badlands and back towards civilization.

To get there, we wanted to stay on dirt as much as possible — no point in futzing around on pavement when a reasonable dirt track could get you to the same place, so rather than track out the way we’d come in, we decided to head west on San Felipe Wash, skirting the south end of the badlands and providing us with yet another surreal, green, desert experience.

Along the way, we stumbled upon the San Gregorio monument — placed by the park, this plaque commemorated the Anza expeditions of 1774–1775. Their group, 240 people strong, with 800 head of livestock obtained water from wells they dug by hand in the sandy wash. Even today, this part of the valley contained more vegetation and was greener than it’s surroundings — a testament to the water underground.

Glad to have spotted to monument and to have had the chance to take in a bit more history, we headed back to the truck, which we’d parked on the lawn that was strangely so pervasive on our trip to the desert.

A quick look at our track told us that we didn’t have long to go on San Felipe Wash before we’d hit a road that I’d been wondering about since I’d started looking at the route we were planning — Borrego Sink.

This was a road that to me looked like it would be essentially a dry lake bed, with no real difficulties whatsoever. However, I’d found several resources that noted — but did not explain why — it as one of the hardest roads in the entire park! From the name, I wondered if there was perhaps some sort of hole or quicksand that in wet weather could make the road impassable — and I hoped that whatever the reason, that we’d have no issue running it.

As we approached, it quickly became clear why this could be a difficult road. Sure enough, it was a dry lake bed, but it was a dry lake bed made of silt and salt. Any rain at all was likely to turn this into a muddy mess, impassable by nearly any vehicle.

The last big rain had been only three days earlier. We drove in.

Cautiously at first, it soon became clear that while…

Check out the rest of the story at Anza-Borrego Part 7 — So. Many. People.

Originally published at https://adventuretaco.com.