Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Anza-Borrego”
Beavertail cactus, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
It is interesting – since we arrived in Anza-Borrego, for exercise, we have been running in Coyote Canyon. Until Friday, I hadn’t seen any sign of blooming cactus. I skipped the area this past weekend, but went back Monday evening and lo and behold, there were numerous blooming cactus! Things can change fast!Read More
Gerry getting down and dirty Saturday night.
I had another fun workshop last weekend with a wonderful, passionate group of photographers. It was nice to have nearly perfect weather – warm, no wind, and even a few clouds, made for a great weekend!Read More
Desert bighorn, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
My alarm went off at its usual pre-sunrise time of 5:20 this morning. As a non-morning person, I gotta admit I’m looking forward to daylight savings time. Anyway, I headed out the door a few minutes later and saw that the sky was full of clouds – clouds that hadn’t been in the forecast. So, I make a last minute decision to head to a more distant location – a place better situated for the sunrise. Well, I ended up watching a spectacular sunrise through the windshield instead of the viewfinder. 🙂
Speaking of clouds – a few moved in briefly on Wednesday afternoon. Cloudy weather provides the perfect defused light for wildlife, so I headed to Borrego Palm Canyon in search of desert bighorn. I spotted two small rams not too high up on the hillside and decided to slowly climb up to them. Over time, I eventually got close to the one you see pictured here. I decided to just sit there and take in the wonderful opportunity of being so close to such a magnificent, rare animal. After a bit of time he eventually laid his head down and closed his eyes! Talk about trust.
I also found the band of ewes with new born lambs which I have been keeping an eye on. I hoped they would come down for a drink. It seemed like they were starting to come down the busy trail area where I have seem them before, but then they too decided to rest. I watched and waited until dark, but they never did come down, but it was still a wonderful day in the desert!
Barrel cactus, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
I have had a few inquires on the wildflower conditions here – I noticed it has been a couple of weeks since my last update, and with the weekend approaching, now seems like a perfect time.
I personally tend to group the wildflowers by where they grow, either in rocky terrain, or in the sandy areas. I imagine the wildflower experts would roll their eyes to such a simple classification, but it makes it easier for me. 🙂
That said, this has been a good year for the wildflowers that grow in the rockier regions – things like brittle bush and chuparosa are looking good. This has been where I have been spending much of my time – pretty much along the base of the mountains, and in the canyons leading into the mountains all have a nice variety of color, including some a few early bloom cactus.
Probably the best area in the park still has to be Borrego Palm Canyon. Thanks to recent rains, the stream now flows all the way down to the campground, and there is a wide variety of wildflowers. Plus, the sheep have been seen in there regularly – yesterday I saw about a dozen including the same band of newborn ewes that I spotted a couple of weeks ago!
Now the sandy ares are a different story, and have only improved a little from two weeks ago. The local newspaper quoted local park official who claimed this has been one of the “weirdest” years they have ever seen – I think that is true for much of the nation. In January they had temperatures pushing 90, but then had a cold spell where it dropped to 24. Local “experts” were partly blaming the freeze on the poor showing. I was skeptical at first, but after doing a bit of hiking, I would now tend to agree. I have found numerous dried up “dead” wildflowers like verbena that do appear to have been killed by something, possibly freezing. And clearly the widespread sahara mustard isn’t helping any.
Two weeks ago, I couldn’t find any verbena or desert gold, but now, there does seem to be a second round of flowers – possibly ones that hadn’t sprouted before the freeze. On my daily exercise run – usually in Coyote Canyon, I’m now seeing numerous patches of verbena, dune primrose and desert gold in places that didn’t have any two weeks ago. Now these are very small patches unusable as a foreground in a landscape image, but adequate if you wanted to do wildflower closeups with a macro lens.
According to the local newspaper – Anza-Borrego naturalists did think this would be a very good year for cactus wildflowers and I would agree – I’m seeing lot of cactus loaded with buds just waiting to bloom. The cactus tend to bloom later and should be a lot better in a couple of weeks. As far as the wildflowers go, I would say this is about peak – some areas of Borrgo Palm Canyon area already declining. So if you are thinking of a visit, I would say come this weekend, or wait for the cactus bloom.
Janine in a mud cave, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
Yesterday we went exploring some mud caves. It is believed that Anza-Borrego may have the largest mud caves in the world. According to the book Anza-Borrego Desert Region
, (a great resource by the way), there are at least 22 known caves. The largest caves are over 1,000 feet long with rooms up to 80 feet high and 30 feet wide. Some of the caves like this one have dry waterfalls. Researcher Dwight Carey notes that subterranean streams are buried at depths of up to 180 feet. Since the erosion rate is low, these caves may be thousands of years old!
It is crazy to think there are subterranean streams in such a dry location!
We explored a couple of caves. The first one just kept going and going, turn after turn – we finally chickened out before ever reaching the end – it is spooky in there!
The one in the photo was my favorite, not only because of the huge chamber created by the dry waterfall, but because it had a sky light making it a bit easier to photograph.
Indian Head, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
Much like Mt Alice back in Seward, Indian Head seems to find its way into many of my compositions here in Anza-Borrego, and this morning wasn’t any exception.
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Cholla and Ocotillo, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
There is a place called the Cholla Garden in Joshua Tree National Park, I think this location is even better – almost as many cholla, but it is also full of blooming Ocotillo right now!
I photographed this last week as I was scouting for the past weekend’s workshop. I forgot to take a photo of the workshop participants, but we had a great time! It stopped raining right before the workshop began, and we had a nice variety of clouds and weather the rest of the day, followed with nice weather on Sunday. One of the unexpected benefits of leading tours and workshops is the opportunity to meet really nice, very interesting people, and last weekend was no exception!
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