January in Anza-Borrego State Park, California

After a pretty stressful Christmas season at work, it was time to blow off some steam, to go back to the simple life in the truck. The desert of Anza-Borrego State Park seemed like the perfect place.

Located about 60 miles east of San Diego, Anza-Borrego is one of those places that you either know all about, or you’ve never heard of. Unless you’re me, of course. I’d heard of it, seen some pics on Pinterest and Instagram, and wanted to go. But that was all.

Michael had never heard of this place but once I described the off-road possibilities he was on board.

We left Arroyo Grande on a Saturday and started the approximately 6 hour drive south. Surprisingly the journey through the Los Angeles area wasn’t too bad. We arrived at Coachwhip Canyon, on the eastern side of the Park, just before sunset.

We’d been told the sign for Coachwhip was “a bit small” and that we should really look for Mile Marker 34, because the turnoff was just past that MM.

Let me tell you, the Mile Marker was waaaaay easier to spot. We took the first turnoff past the MM and barely noticed the little sign on the right in the photo above.

Yeah, I guess I’d call that a bit small.

Anyway, we found several dispersed campsites there in Coachwhip Canyon, and we didn’t even drive that far in. The night was pretty, and warm, although there wasn’t much for a sunset. The only clouds in the sky were contrails from passing jets. Still, I was happy. To be back in the truck, back to sleeping in the tent, to enjoy the night sky. We had some neighbors but overall the canyon was quiet overnight.

In the morning I was up early to make coffee – always nice when the temperature is in the mid-40’s or warmer – and watched the sun creep up over the hillside.

For our first whole day in the park we had a particular destination, and it was simply called The Slot. This siltstone canyon is one of the most popular hikes in the area. And while we could have driven on the pavement to get there, Michael had a better idea. It was called the Cut Across Trail.

We had a detailed map of the Park, and there are a ton of 4×4 trails out here. Michael plotted us a path that began on Arroyo Salad trail, which mostly looked like this:

Now, some sections were rougher, and some were really sandy, but we were clearly in a dry wash, so route-finding wasn’t something we worried too much about. Michael did all the driving and I plotted our course on the map. I kept an eye on the map because there were occasional trail intersections, and we both wanted to reach The Slot and not get lost. Besides, this is what trail intersections tended to look like:

I guess Anza-Borrego State Park is quite fond of those teeny tiny signs. Anyway, the Arroyo Salado trail brought us to our first-ever oasis: Seventeen Palms.

No, I didn’t count to make sure that there were exactly 17 palm trees. We did get out any walk around, though. It was pretty cool. I even found a little cache in-between two palm trees.

The red notebook inside the barrel was a log, of sorts. Many people before me had signed their names and hometowns. I added ours, too.

Moving on, we continued along the Arroyo Salado Trail until we met up with the Cut Across Trail, stopping occasionally for pictures, and then for lunch.

It was a fun drive. I enjoyed the navigating process, although it wasn’t very hard, and eventually we found ourselves at the parking lot for what we’d come to hike. The Slot.

What I’d read about The Slot said there were no trail markers, the trailhead had no signs, etc. That all ended up being true, but since the parking lot was almost full when we arrived… well, all we did was follow the crowd.

I may have mentioned this a couple of times before, but I *love* slot canyons. I’ve been hooked on them ever since we hiked Little Wildhorse Canyon back in 2016 and my last slot canyon was last year, in Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park.

I was ready. And even though it was short, The Slot did not disappoint. Like most slot canyons, this one started out wide and just kept getting narrower.

The only thing that disappointed me here was the length. The narrowest part of The Slot is only about a mile long. Still, we both enjoyed it. A lot. This is an out-and-back hike, so we stopped for water at the end, where the trail widens back out, and then turned around.

We even found these crazy, almost perfectly round stones along the trail. They looked just like Atlas Stones! They’re actually referred to “concretions” and they start off kind of similar to pearls – grains of wet sand form around an object, such as a pebble. When the water evaporates the sand hardens around the object. Then years of wind erosion finish off the shape.

What a good first day at Anza-Borrego! We were stoked and ready for more.