This would be Sara and my third New Years in the Anza Borrego desert. With much to explore, lots of open space to escape from people, a short drive from Riverside, and comfortable temperatures where too cold elsewhere this time of year, I consider this is a good option.
After driving along the Salton Sea and turning west we drove through thousands of motorhomes and recreational toys lining the highways for their new year's experience. Literally hundreds of millions of dollars (potentially even over a billion by my math!) of gas guzzling machines designed to bring the comforts of home to a dusty roadside and drive in circles tearing up the desert until its time to refuel again. I'm sure it's fun and a good time, but...I'd better stop there and let them be.
While not the destination, the Palm Wash slot canyon area was a
convenient roadside stop on our drive to Sheep Canyon area of Anza
Borrego. The roads in this area are better suited to the off-highway vehicles which tear them up than the Subaru, so after driving a short distance in I decided our mountain bikes would be better transport. We biked along an old alluvial fan surface, then down a rough road into the main wash system. We biked just past the end of the road before ditching them at the start of the west slot.
We walked up west slot (which reputably has the best narrows of any canyon in the area). A short lower slot gave way to open wash, then a road crossing with some Jeepers, then up a longer, deeper, more sustained upper slot. These were pretty decent water smoothed, twisty slots for California. Below a chockstone dryfall we took the obvious loose scramble out of the canyon. At intervals we would come across cracks mineralized with nice optical calcite up to one foot wide. Several of these have been mined commercially on a small scale.
From above the slot we had an excellent view over the badlands and towards Borrego. One prominant bedrock hill had particularly nice huecoed alcoves. Consulting my map I soon realized the slot we hoped to loop back down had two handline/rappels marked and I didn't bring a rope. We ventured on anyway, following a fault break into the east slot and heading upstream for a quick look. Downstream we found the first rappel with a handline already conveniently rigged and safe to handline (and return up if we had to). Soon after the second handline was also easily downclimbable so we were in the clear. This canyon too had some nice narrows. We followed east slot down to its confluence where we retrieved our
bikes and returned to the car. Not bad for a couple hour diversion to
break up the drive.
We drove on north of Borrego Springs, eventually finding the right road through the agriculture to take us towards our destination of Sheep Canyon. The coarse decomposed granite and wet ground made for remarkably smooth and dust-free travel. We had a couple stream crossings to contend with in the dark and then a short distance further the notorious Boulder Alley, a very steep 0.5 mile rocky gut of a road. Apparently this stretch of road used to be rock crawlers only before it was regraded, but as it was it tested the limits of what the Subaru was able to handle. Some clutch was sacrificed and adrenaline pumped, but we made it and it was easy going the rest of the way to camp. We enjoyed the remote feel of this road end, with only two other groups camped nearby in contrast to the motorhome cities. We liked to think we turned these Jeepers heads with the Subaru's conquest. We had a great night's sleep despite light evening rain.
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