Friday, November 28, 2008

Arid Adventure

For Thanksgiving week we had planned to pack up our camping trailer and take a trip. We had quite a few ideas of where to go but we finally decided to visit Anza Borrego. It's in the desert a couple of hours from where we live. It's northeast of San Diego, Southeast of Palm Springs, and west of Salton Sea.

At first glance it may appear to be a vast wasteland with nothing to see or do, but a closer look will reveal some very surprsing finds. On our first full day of exploration we drove to the badlands in search of slot canyons. From where we parked, this is what we saw...


After hubby convinced me that we wouldn't get lost inside the slots (we made sure there were plenty of markers where we started), we headed down to find this...


It looks like dried mud, like it could crumble in very easily, but it's actually quite hard. Each turn revealed more photo opportunities.


It was verrrry narrow in some places...


And, very deep in others...


We were so glad we hiked down inside. It was amazing!

You'd never know this was there by driving down the highway. A little research and a little detour made for a fun little adventure.

3 comments:

Sel and Poivre said...

What beautiful geography! There is an area with similar formations northeast of Calgary here in Canada that we visited a couple of years ago. As you say it is so interesting to find amazing sites in an area that to the casual observer would seem to offer nothing of the sort!

Lee Ann said...

OMG I didn't know how beautiful the desert could really be. Your pictures are absolutely stunning. They really captured the true beauty that the desert has to offer. Thanks for sharing.

Unknown said...

This does look like a great place to camp in the winter. I would love to go some day.

Paula H