Rockhouse Canyon Wildflower Blooms in May - ABDSP

Gary and I spent 4 days backpacking in Rockhouse Canyon a couple weekends ago and I was suprised by all of the bright, beautiful wildflower blooms we saw. Most were at and above the 3,000' level or so, mainly starting around the base of the Santa Rosa ridge line but some extended down into Rockhouse Canyon Valley area. We got rained on 2 days and endured heavy winds most of the trip but it was fun, backpacking in Rockhouse Canyon never gets boring. Water at the springs was lower then normal which was a surprise.

Color photos taken with Garmin Montana 680t GPS.
B/W taken with an Olympus XA 35mm & TMax 100 film developed Pyrocat-HD.



























Happy Mothers Day, I found this balloon heading back to our cars, literally on Mothers Day..!!










Total Mylar Balloons this trip - 9


----

Indian Valley / June Wash / Diablo BM - ABDSP

Like many of my trips to Anza Borrego Desert State Park I usually will have one thing I am going out to do and then I will usually find other things along the way to do also. This trip involved photographing some pictographs near the In-Ko-Pah mountain range. Using Indian Valley as my base camp I packed up my gear and was ready for a 2 day backpack trip to try and find the pictographs. The weather was great and I only saw a few cars the first day I arrived and then only a single person when I left, none of them were camping.

The pictographs proved to be worth all the effort, here are few photos of them.

DStretched enhanced circle motif


I have seen some refer to these next two pictographs as the Xray pictographs



DStretched enhanced version


To learn more about pictographs in Anza Borrego Desert State Park pick up a copy of Manfred Knaak's book The Forgotten Artist: Indians of Anza-Borrego and Their Rock Art

You can find more books about Rock Art in California on Amazon

Before heading back to Indian Valley I figured I would summit False Sombrero, it has been just over a year since Scotty "C" and I went up there.

Looks like the Cliff Bar and the Cholla Ball Combs we left are still in the jar


And someone may have actually used Scotty's combs!


One small dime sized macro wildflower bloom in Indian Valley before I left


Before going home I decided to go over to June Wash and try to hike up and over to Sandstone Canyon as described in Jerry Schads book. The effort proved too much for me after the backpack trip and I stopped at Diablo BM instead and called it a day. It was still a great hike and the views were awesome, recommended hike for sure to anyone thinking about it. Do read the trip description in Jerry's newest edition unlike myself. I only took his 1986 copy and the description was outdated and I ended up hiking the wrong wash.

June Wash sign at the S2 turn off


Heading up June Wash, it is easy going for the first 1-1/2 miles or so and then it gets bouldery


The Diablo BM register


Heading back down June Wash, Sombrero Peak waaaayy off in the distance


Here are links to (2) 360 degree panorama images from Diablo BM. One is just the view and the next is the view but with landscape features annotated for reference. I recommend you download the full versions of the photos and zoom in and pan around, they are about 22MB each.

View only - Download full version


View with landscape features - Download full version


Congratulations, it's a boy! - From The Desert


Total Mylar Ballons this trip - 2
Total old faded beer cans - 2

Sacatone Overlook / Carrizo Gorge ABDSP

Gopher Snake in Carrizo Gorge

Scotty "C" and I headed out to Carrizo Gorge for our now annual Sacatone Overlook / Carrizo Gorge hike. You can read about our trip last year here. This year we decided to go south in the bottom of Carrizo Gorge and see if we could find any remains of the old train encampment. The weather this year was much nicer than last year but the terrain and amount of elevation gain/loss still makes this a pretty difficult hike thru some of the least visited and remote areas of Anza Borrego. When hiking in this area of the park we usually do not even see any signs of illegal crossing routes, no dumped backpacks or discarded tuna cans. Scott and I both agree that if the illegals can make it thru this part of the backcountry than they probably have earned a spot here.

April brings Spring weather and also many wildflowers and snakes. We saw four snakes this trip but no rattlesnakes. Wildflowers and especially the cactus blooms seem more abundant in this area of the park. We covered about 9.5 miles total and about 5,000' of elevation gain/loss in about 9 hours. We made really good time compared to last year, mostly due to Scott's recent intense Jillian Michaels regiment...way to go Scott!!

Be sure to look at all of the pictures from the trip here

Scott and I before we head down Cry Baby Hill..looking good Scott!!

Some pottery sherds and a metate we found along the way

Close up of the pottery sherds and some other tool looking like stones

Gopher snake we saw along the way, Scott stepped within inches of this snake not seeing easily

Balance Rock, we use this as a field marker to navigate this remote area of the park

Yucca Bloom

Desert Beetle on a Barrel Cactus Bloom

Down in Carrizo Gorge looking south

Cholla Forest - we got cholla balls stuck on us with every step

This was about the most prominent sign of the train camp

Horned Toad Lizard

GPS Tracks of the route

This panorama shows a large section of one hillside collapsing down

This is a panorama of the entire gorge area

Be sure to look at all of the pictures from the trip here


--

Indian / Clark / Blair Valley ABDSP

Desert Beetle enjoying pollen

Camped out for three nights last week in Indian Valley and Blair Valley. Bob from the Anza Borrego website wanted to check out some pictographs Scott and I found on a previous trip so I met him in Indian Valley for a second trip out to Inner Pasture where the pictographs are located. Along the way we spotted a Red Racer snake lounging in the sun and also many wildflowers blooming in the sandy washes and rocky ridges we climbed.

The next day I headed over to Clark Valley to finally see the petroglyphs located near the dry lake bed. Temperatures that day reached 97 degrees on my truck dash, it was hot and I ended up drinking close to 120 ounces of water for a 4 mile hike. I camped the last night in Blair Valley where I knew it would be cooler and it was 87 degrees when I arrived near 5pm. I ended up camping at the Pictograph trailhead and in the morning hiked down to see the pictographs and also Smuggler Canyon. These pictographs are well documented by all of the Anza Borrego Visitor information pamphlets and are actually pretty cool to go see. The road is a 5 mile hard packed dirt road passable by almost any vehicle in good weather. In fact the only people I saw showed up in a Honda Fit. They stayed briefly and then I had the whole area to myself until I left the next morning.

Total Mylar balloon count for 3 days of hiking....15

You can see more pictures of Indian Valley, Clark Valley and Blair Valley here

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the trip.

Red Racer snake in Indian Valley

Fishhook Cactus in Indian Valley

Desert Beetle covered with pollen on a Wallaces Woolie Daisy

Turkey Vulture in Indian Valley

Desert Iguana posturing with his mouth open to appear larger as defense measure

Side-Blotched Lizard in Blair Valley

White-Crowned Sparrow in Clark Valley

Panorama of Clark Valley (click image to see full size)

Panorama of Smuggler Canyon (click to see full size)

Be sure to check out all of the pictures from the trip here

--