The Hoppy Okapi » Borrego Springs

Wildflowers in Anza Borrego: Palm Canyon Trail

Amanda — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 05:35:11 +0000

After our tour of Galleta Meadows and lunch at Carlee’s (home of yummy burgers and yummier homemade potato chips), we headed out to Anza Borrego state park to claim our campsite and do a bit of hiking. We headed out on Palm Canyon trail, the most popular one in the park, and the same one that we started on on our backpaking trip last fall. Anza Borrego during the wildflower bloom is a lot different than Anza Borrego during late fall – more water, more green plants, and way more people. The flowers themselves were pretty impressive once we got about half a mile down the trail – almost every leafy plant in site was blooming, and the buds were just starting to come out on the cacti. We were sad to see a troop of boy scouts playing strange gladiator games and running amok over the delicate desert landscape (I thought the point of camping during scouting was to learn to like and respect nature, not destroy it, but apparently times have changed), but otherwise had a good time exploring the canyon and taking pictures of the flowers. We hiked a little beyond the oasis to a small waterfall, and then took the trail less-traveled on the way back to camp, hiking along the western edge of the canyon. Even though the main trail was pretty crowded, there was no one else on the longer trail back to camp, and we almost lost faith a few times when it took counter-intuitive twists, but ultimately stuck with it and enjoyed the alternate view.

Tagged: Anza Borrego, Borrego Springs, Carlee's, flowers, hiking, ocotillo, Palm Canyon, wildflowers

Return to Galleta Meadows

Amanda — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 03:55:13 +0000

As I mentioned in November, we planned to visit Anza Borrego state park this spring to see the wildfowers. As soon as projections and reports of wildflower blooms started rolling in in mid-February I made a reservation for a campsite, and we headed out to the desert for the first weekend in March. Our Saturday morning activity was to visit all of the Galleta Meadows sculpture sites – we had only seen a few of them as we drove through town last fall, but this time we made a comprehensive visit. Here are some of the pictures I took of the sculptures:

An Elephant welcomes us to Galleta Meadows

Mammoths:

The Giant Bird (with baby warthog in its clutches!):

Wild Horses:

Gomphotheriums -extinct animals that were related to elephants and bear a resemblance to fanged tapirs:

Camels:

Giant Sloths:

mini-sloth:

Elephant:

Tortoises:

Saber Tooth Tiger:

And last but not least, the wild pigs (warthogs! cuddly baby warthogs! I think these were Chuck’s favorite…)

Tagged: Anza Borrego, Borrego Springs, Galleta Meadows, Gomptheriums, mammoths, sculpture

Beasties!

Amanda — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 03:11:00 +0000

No, not the kittens (what, do you think I’ve stopped writing about anything else?)…sculptures!

We drove out to Borrego Springs this weekend for some hiking, and in the meantime managed to see some of the ultra-fun sculptures that have been put up this year.I had forgotten all about them until we suddenly noticed the giant steel mammoths along the side of the road heading into town.

There are about a dozen installations set up around town (although we only saw the three southern ones). The sculptures represent different animals that roamed the Borrego Valley in prehistoric times – mammoths, saber-tooth tigers, camels, and giant sloths! We’re already planning another trip to go see the wildflowers in the spring, so we’ll go back and see all the ones we missed then…

Wild Horse scupture in Galleta Meadows

Tagged: art, Borrego Springs, Galleta Meadows, sculptures