Anza-Barrego Desert State Park, California

The Anza-Barrego Desert State Park is often ignored in favour of the more famous Joshua Tree National Park, a 90-minute drive north. It’s a surreal land of crazy-looking cactus, saw-toothed mountains, slot canyons, wild sheep and an explosion of wildflowers in spring.

The second largest state park in America at 640,000 acres, it was formed in 1933 when the two separate parks of De Anza Desert and Borrego State were merged. De Anza was a Spanish explorer who walked this way in 1774. He may or may not have marvelled at the 1.5 million bighorn sheep, exclaiming lo que muchos de borregos, which is one origin story. The other is that a bunch of local cowboys got ornery with a bunch of local shepherds and used the word barrego in its pejorative Spanish sense, which is “simpleton”. Whatever the story, the number of the graceful bighorn sheep is down to about 600 and they are shy critters. You can, in fact, best admire them and their enormous curvy horns at the Living Desert Zoo in Palm Springs (for my story on Palm Springs click here).

Winding our way through the desolate rocky Yaqui Pass at twilight, it’s a relief to see the valley below spattered with subdued lights. This is an International Dark Sky Community, the first in California, and all the town’s lights are deliberately kept low, so as not to spoil the star-gazing.

With a population of approx. 3,500, Barrego Springs is a homey place. The town has one roundabout. It’s called Christmas Circle and its expanse of emerald grass socks you in the eye amid that arid landscape. The weekly Friday market is held on it. You can stay in town, and explore the cafes, art gallery and Performing Arts Centre, but we couldn’t resist the sprawling resort of La Casa del Zorro on the outskirts.

The garden of La Casa del Zorro

This desert resort is set amid a garden of weirdly wonderful plants. The large, comfortable family rooms are grouped around one of the resort’s 26 pools and a spa. We leave the kids in the room watching TV and sneak out to the Fox Den Bar for happy hour. Above the bar is a delicate mural of a bunch of wily foxes drinking martinis, reading the paper and playing the violin. On the way in, we spot a glass vitrine containing first editions of Richard Nixon’s books and an American flag bearing his signature. The former president was a friend of the Copley family who bought La Casa del Zorro in 1960 and attracted the Hollywood crowd. These days, I suspect none of the current celebrities would be seen dead at this unpretentious likeable resort.

The Foxy Den Bar

I have pre-booked a day’s outing in the state park with Joe Raffetto from California Overland Tours and when we arrive at the ramshackle HQ, my husband gives me one of those looks and exclaims, “Where the hell have you brought me?” But he says that a lot. And Joe turns out to be the most engaging guide to the region you could hope to find, with an Indiana Jones look to him and a similar unflappable demeanour. We’ve lucked out, it’s just the four of us in the Anza-Borrego desert with Joe for the next six hours. “Ain’t that a trip”, he says.

In a zippy yellow jeep, we traverse a tiny section of the desert wilderness but see three different terrains. The first is a salt-crusted, dry-as-a-bone plain that is Clark Dry Lake. It’s hard to believe that just 8,000 years ago it sustained mammoths, camels, sabre-tooth cats, wolves, badgers, huge tortoises and giant ground sloths. Just 1.5 million years ago, gomphotheres lived here too. A precursor to the elephant we know, these were a shorter version with an elongated lower jaw and two pairs of long tusks, ending in a shovel-like tusk that enabled it to scoop up swampy vegetation.

Clark Dry Lake

The barren Santa Rosa mountains rising up from the plain were born of the turbulent San Jacinto Fault, a branch of the better known San Andreas fault which caused the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. Standing in the middle of the plain in mid-winter, it is still fiercely hot at noon, though mild compared to summer temperatures in the 40s. Joe operates through the summer, but relies on the car’s air conditioner to revive his clients, though some, he tells us, do actually venture out in California Overland’s open-air military vehicles. The sky is the colour of old calico and the mountains are a faded hessian, but when the sun lowers in a few hours, Clark Dry Lake will be awash in violets and crimson.

The second stop is at one of the slot canyons in the Park. These are narrow walkways in the sandstone cliffs that have developed their own microcosmic ecosystems. The soft sandstone is very vulnerable, and on the way Joe halts to wipe away recent graffiti on a rock: “Neanderthals”, he observes, shaking his head. During our walk, he points out the tiny burrows of scorpions, the whorls of darker sediment in the cliffs and the hardy plants clinging to crevices. The Cheesebush has long linear stems and creamy white flowers like miniature paper daisies, and smells nothing like cheese. We cup the tiny leaves of the creosote bush and blow on them to release a pungent smoky fragrance. The silvery green colour of the leaves helps them preserve moisture. The further in we go, the narrower the gap between the buxom walls, until we have to squeeze through at times. It’s odd to think that the canyon is constantly changing shape in inestimable tiny ways.

Lunch is al fresco sandwiches at the oasis of Seventeen Palms after a rollicking ride on a narrow dirt track, during which the kids stick their heads out of the sunroof, whooping like lunatics. “Hey” I say, “isn’t that a coyote”, feeling proud to have spotted its wolverine body among the grey boulders. It eyes us off and trots away, sniffing the breeze.

The seventeen California Fan Palms are loveable, like huge matrons in hula skirts. The dead fronds do not drop off but form ever thicker skirts that protect the trunk from the desert heat. It’s the only indigenous palm in the State, and a welcome drop of green in all that brown.

Last stop is Vista del Malpais lookout, literally View of the Badlands, a series of deep forbidding desert corrugations that stretch away to the horizon. “Close your eyes” instructs Joe, “and walk forward”. On opening them, we gasp: with the late afternoon sun burnishing the dry landscape a pale red, we could be on Mars. In that light, the jagged furrows of the desert are etched sharply and the tiny intricate flowers atop the tall rangy stems of the Octillo bushes are a brilliant flash of scarlet. I want to hug the rotund little California Barrel Cactus in all its glowing coral pinkness.

In March, during the spring, visitors flock to Anza-Borrego for the wildflowers. It’s a display as astonishing as the huge bronze sculptures that dot the valley, the work of a local artist, Ricardo Breceda, who once he got started in 2008 hasn’t been able to stop. We pose for lots of photographs under the giant T-Rex. It’s so realistic, I can’t help feeling nervous about the proximity of that huge toothy jaw to my son’s head. Breceda sculpts all sorts of dinosaurs, as well as a heap of other animals including horses, camels, llamas, a sabre-tooth tiger, a mammoth, an elephant, a giant tortoise, a big-horn sheep, a scorpion and a serpent. The Barrego Springs Guide lists all of their locations and it’s fun trekking between dinosaurs in the cactus plains that encircle the village.

We love the quiet, austere winter beauty of Anza-Barrego Desert State Park, and are reluctant to leave sleepy Barrego Springs for busy Palm Springs. It and the Joshua Tree National Park are just on the other side of the Santa Rosa mountains, but they might as well be a million miles away.

EXTRA

Borrego Springs is a three-hour drive south from Los Angeles and a 100-minutes north from San Diego. 

 La Casa del Zorro has both guest rooms and casitas; a deluxe 2-queen room cost us US$242 with breakfast for 2 adults included.www.lacasadelzorro.com

California Overland Desert Tours charge US$145 per adult, US$90 per child for the Three Terrains outing. www.californiaoverland.com
Visit the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Visitor Centre for detailed maps of the walks. They show videos of the spring wildflowers. During “the blooming season” in March, April and May, they operate a wildflower hotline (760 767 4684). They also offer Naturalists’ Talks, night sky programmes and guided hikes. www.parks.ca.gov
Explore Barrego, Seventeen Palms Oasis and the Vista del Mapais on
e-bike tours. Most rides are rated easy to moderate and vary from 2 hours to 4. They cost from US$40 to US$75 pp. 
www.bikeboreggo.com from October to May. 
A retired astronomer called Dennis Mammana runs a stargazing experience on moonless nights in a field just outside of town. We were a little underwhelmed by the two hours, mainly because Australians can relish an outback night sky unadulterated by any lights at all. Even shielded by its mountains, Barrego’s night sky is tainted by the electricity-soaked cities of San Diego and LA. But go ahead and judge for yourself.  www.borregonightskytours.com