California hike Archives

Another CA Anza – Borrego Desert State Park Trail to Hike!

January 16, 2025December 15, 2024Posted in adventure travel, blogging, environment, Travel, wildlifeTagged California hike, travel, wildlifeLeave a comment

If your goal is to see a variety of cacti in California, then the Cactus Loop Nature Trail is the hike for you! It’s about a 20 minute drive from the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park’s visitor center to this trailhead. If you did not buy a day pass at the visitor center, then buy it at the parking lot. Be sure to carry some water even on this one mile hike. It is a rocky trail with a short strenuous start, but take your time and look for the various cacti!

Teddy-bear Cholla Cacti, front and center.

The spines of the Teddy-bear Cholla Cactus, sometimes called “jumping cholla”, truly did not jump on you! Your mistake was in getting to close to the cactus. The spines have barbs that cling to your skin or your clothing. An easy fix to getting it off your clothing is to use a hair pick or comb …. see photo below:

Pick or comb can remove cactus spines easily!

Sometimes however, the situation is worse with some cacti and you’ll need to use tweezers to pull out spines … and the smaller the spine, the more work it is to get them all out! So, watch your step when walking in any cacti area.

Here are some cacti you will find on this trail, photos below. Thanks also to the use of the iNaturalist app, I have the names of each cactus. If you do not have this app, check it out as it is very easy to use and you’ll be a citizen scientist!

Echinocereus engelmannii ssp … no common name given …

Finally, we left Anza – Borrego Desert State Park, with the realization there is so much more to hike and an Erosion Road Driving Tour to take with our own vehicle on a paved road … next time … along with other hikes! Be sure to follow your map, especially where there is no cell service, in this park. There are many, many dirt roads within a 600,000 acre area, you do not want to run out of gas or water. Stay safe everyone!

Visit Anza – Borrego Desert State Park in CA!

January 12, 2025December 15, 2024Posted in blogging, Travel, walking, wildlifeTagged California hike, desert, travel, wildlifeLeave a comment

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is large … 600,000 acres and the largest state park in California … with the town of Borrego Springs in the middle of it! Last month we decided to check out this park and hike a couple of trails. The weather was perfect, but if you decide to hike here during summer months, remember, you MUST have water, and sun protection for your skin and eyes! Any time of the year, a day pass is required. It can be bought at the visitor center or pay boxes at parking lots.

As you drive to the park’s visitor center, one could wonder what is so interesting about a place that looks so desolate. Rock, with no topsoil on it; no vegetation; no animals walking around; no flowers this time of year! This “badland’ area is of interest to geologists who study the layers of land here from the past. Those sedimentary rock layers hide past life as scientists discover and uncover fossils. We were not here for that this day … off to do a hike or two!

On the road to Anza – Borrego Desert State Park, CA

After an informative stop at the visitor center, we drove to the Borrego Palm Canyon Nature Trail. Normally this would be a high-trafficked trail, but mid-week in the winter, not so much! It’s a rocky trail, couple of miles, with not much of an elevation gain. The trail continues to an overlook where one can see the post-fire recovery of the fan palms and can make your hike a bit longer. (More about fan vs date palms in a future post.)

In January 2020, a fire was carelessly set destroying many fan palms found in the canyon; basically the area was an oasis! This area of the trail is currently closed. Recovery takes time and we’ll hope many of the fan palms survive and grow again, along with the return of bighorn sheep, reptiles, insects and amphibians.

We decided to hike the “alternate” signed trail for our return, to the parking lot, and not simply backtrack on the main trail. Thankfully we used the “All Trails” app, trail downloaded when contemplating to do this hike… thus prior to stepping foot on the trail. It helped us decipher between the “alternate” trail and the other many social trails as we returned to our vehicle! It’s not a long trail, but remember your water!

A Mountain Hike Near Idyllwild, California

December 30, 2021December 9, 2021Posted in adventure travel, blogging, TravelTagged California hikeLeave a comment

Once again we used the All Trail App for what looked like a straight forward hike: Idyllwild South Loop, a 2.3 mile loop with 650 feet ascent. Hiking in the San Bernardino National Forest allows us a higher altitude to escape the Palm Desert heat!

We drove to Idyllwild Park, paid a day use fee and walked around a meadow near the parking area. Informative signs about the Cahuilla tribe migrating from the Coachella Valley to the mountains in this area to stay cooler, sort of our plan too! The Cahuilla hunted many small animals with arrows, did not hunt mountain lions or bears, and never ate eagles or ravens because they were used in sacred rituals. They ate various plants with acorns their primary food source. Some plants were used for medicine. Information about their basket-making, homes and sweat houses was also interesting. They had great respect for each other and the land: plants and animals.

An interesting legend involves a stone monolith as seen in the photograph below:

Notice the stone monolith: Tahquitz Dome or Lily Rock

According to legend, an evil shaman, Tahquitz, was tricked into entering a cave by a great Cahuilla warrior, and is now sealed behind the rock. The trapped evil shaman may still be up to his evil ways as present day rumblings and disappearances are sometimes attributed to Tahquitz. The monolith is referred to as Tahquitz Dome and/or Lily Rock.

We found the start of the Idyllwild South Loop trail with the use of the app, yet on the ground it was not named that ever during our hike. There are many trails in this area: Perimeter Trail, a multi-purpose trail, a campground area, thus at the start there was a bit of confusion. What I did know was to go left per an All Trail reviewer’s note about the Idyllwild South loop. Since I read the suggestion I decided it was a good way to approach the hillside … a steep ascent at the start of the trail than returning that way. That was fine by me, except we never saw the trail named Idyllwild South Loop!

When in doubt, at some intersections, we navigated via the app assured we were completing a loop and returning to our car in a few hours! Best idea was hiking the steeper side first and really enjoy the way down without climbing over so many rocks as we had done on our way up. The air was cool as we climbed higher, yet the sun was warm!

Nice vistas along the way as we climbed higher into the pines and could look out across the land. Supposedly on a clear day one can see all the way to the Pacific Ocean. This day was not so clear but you could see quite a distance! It was beautiful! I think there was probably much more to see on this trail but most my time was spent being sure we were on the correct trail! It was a good short day hike, but I still cannot figure how these trails get named on the All Trails app since we never saw the name of the trail here.

Here are some photos from this hike:

CA Desert Hike Reinforces Importance of Preparedness!

December 26, 2021December 9, 2021Posted in adventure travel, blogging, TravelTagged California hike, preparedness in desertLeave a comment

We set off to visit Coachella Valley Preserve on a 4.4 mile loop hike: Hidden Horseshoe Palms and Pushwalla Palms Trail. It seemed like a perfect plan. We each had snacks, water, lunch and appropriate hiking gear for a moderate hike. We followed the recommendation: best hiked September to April, yet November and December temperatures were still mid to high 80 degrees.

The heavily-trafficked trail at the entrance of the preserve was an uphill well-trenched path with a sign indicating the direction for Pushwalla Palms, but no trail sign for Hidden Horseshoe. So we hiked the main trail believing we would see a side trail to Hidden Horseshoe. In time we were at a high point looking down on palm trees and thinking, that may be the Hidden Horseshoe trail down there! My guess, at this high point, was the unnamed side trail near the entrance of the preserve was the loop trail. How were we to know that I am not sure. I am never on an outdoor adventure walking and watching my location on any app each step of the way, but maybe if I had been I would have known early on the unsigned trail was the one for us! It did not look like the trail we were on would hook up with what we supposed may be a Hidden Horseshoe trail since we were on a high point and seemingly an endpoint. Since trail signs were few and far between it now became obvious we should not have hiked to the high point, yet this social trail to the top surely had been popular!

The problem with any social trail appearing to be a main trail is it may not be the correct trail to be on at all. In the desert especially, people can wander and walk almost anywhere; through the years others will follow and a trail becomes worn and looking like a main trail. (If you are a hiker, please use designated trails in a park.)

With some thought and use of the All Trails app, because I had downloaded this loop trail before coming here, we were able to orient ourselves to some degree. The downside was no consistent GPS in the desert! Thankfully when we stood at the high point GPS marked our location; we knew where we were. With the downloaded map and compass on my iPhone, we had a good idea the direction we should head. Did it seem unsettling at times? Yes! But we had water, snacks and daylight to figure it all out. We eventually hiked through Pushwalla Palms and along the foothills of a ridge. I knew we needed to get to the other side of this particular ridge and we should see a road and possibly even our car. At least an hour later we saw our car in the distance and could breathe a sigh of relief in knowing we would be fine.

As with all hiking, it is important to always be prepared! I remember a friend of mine in New York State’s Adirondack Mountains telling me she’ll hike a trail that looked to her like a parallel path of the main trail. To me, it looked like a fork in the trail. I made my decision and she made hers. Long story short, hours later I saw her again! I was on the main trail and she was on a side trail to elsewhere before she realized her error. Things can happen so quickly when in environments with so many unknowns. I got thinking about that NY situation realizing I forgot to pack my headlamp and long sleeve shirt even on this hike. My habit was to have a headlamp and a wool long sleeve shirt, but in the desert hike I sometimes forget to be as prepared as I should be. Nights get cold in the desert, and I was glad to not have that experience with this hike! Our loop hike was an adventure and good reminder to take the desert seriously. The sunny blue sky and almost barren landscape does bring challenges different than a forested area. All require preparedness and as hikers it is our responsibility to be safe!

Hike safely everyone!

Photos from the hike: