Julie and I love the beaches and we spend as much time as possible with sand and surf.  We also crave the mountains with their snowy tops, jagged peaks, stunning walks and amazing views.  But we have always held a special place for the wide open spaces, the long flat prairies, the barren lifeless bush and the endless desert.  The desert fascinates us and amazes us at every turn.  And where else to start exploring more deserts than in inland southern California and the huge Anza Borrego Desert State Park.

This state park, the largest in California, protects 600,000 acres of untouched desert just north of the Mexican border.  It features an amazing array of cacti for us to reacquaint ourselves with, plus wildlife and birds that somehow manage to prosper in these harsh conditions. 

We woke up at the edge of the park and crossed huge swaths of dry desert to reach the small town of Borrego Springs where we picked up supplies and hit the Visitor Centre.  The first problem was obvious – this was late May and the weather was absolutely stinking hot, too hot to explore many of the amazing nooks and crannies of this park by foot.  With morning temperatures over 40°C (104°F) we knew Tramp’s air conditioner would be our best friend.

And so it was as we explored many of the recommended highlights of park, including Slot Canyon, stunning Hawk’s Canyon, numerous other washes and canyons, crossing many rough dirt tracks to see as much as we could. 

We were frustrated we couldn’t do any of the walks of the park but when the temperature topped out at 44°C (111°F) we were flat out just trying not to melt every time we stepped out of the hardworking Tramp who grinded away up sandy tracks and over terrain better suited for a much cooler day.  On ya, Tramp.

We returned to our favourite spot, Hawk’s Canyon, and set up camp for the night, the tall vertical red walls of an ancient land all around us, an outstanding perfect 10 spot if ever there was one.  The desert and it’s wonderful cacti, even if a couple months past their most colourful bloom, had totally grabbed us again.

How do we top such a day?  Well, we chose to dive deeper into the remote areas of the park, first following the Basin Drive back to Borrego Springs, which turned out to be a very challenging and technical 4WD track that seven metre long Ford F250’s and their campers do not usually attempt.  There were some tight technical bits but with Julie as my pointer and Tramp as my carriage we made it through the narrow, winding and rocky basin.

We followed another rough dirt track and had lunch at a place north of town called Desert Garden which was heavy on the desert and very light on the garden.  We then pointed eastward towards the Salton Sea but had to divert off the bitumen one more time to find a couple of clumps of palm trees, cleverly called 17 Palms and 5 Palms (strangely we counted 25 palms and 4 palms, respectively), in the middle of the hot and dry desert badlands. 

This drive proved to be all of the morning drive with it’s stunning scenery and technical offroad driving but then a little bit more as we had to rely on low range 4WD to get us out of a few soft spots.  The terrain we were passing through could have been on Mars, except for the forlorn palm trees, and we relished every moment of having what seemed to be the entire park to ourselves in one of it’s most remote corners. 

Thank goodness for Tramp’s extraordinary capabilities while carrying all this weight because with the temperatures steadily over 40°C (104°C) all day I was grateful there was no digging to get him out of any bad situations.

We left the palms and returned to the highway using a different set of tracks which seemed a good idea at the time but turned out to be more very challenging work for Tramp and his driver.  Eventually we popped out onto the paved road, breathed a sigh of relief, tension in the cab dropping down many octaves, and puttered into the forlorn town of Salton City on the shores of the Salton Sea.

The Salton Sea is a natural lake with no outlet, most recently formed in 1905 when the Colorado River changed it’s course in flood and filled this basin.  But the most amazing aspect of this lake is that it is 71 metres, or 237 feet below sea level and is so salty and stagnant it is toxic to humans.  And it’s huge!

We followed a road through one of the most rundown and sad communities I’d seen in America to what was called Salton Sea Beach and walked out onto the crusty sandy brine for a look at this amazing place.  The water had a subtle foul smell and the air was thick with salt.  We thought it was one of the most inhospitable places we had ever been. 

In hospitable or not, we found a great little spot on the shores of the lake and set up camp for the night, pinching ourselves for the crazy good day we had enjoyed in the desert and now camped at this unbelievable geographic wonder. 

The next morning our circumnavigation of the Salton Sea continued, stopping at Desert Sands for another look at a shoreline community and their ‘beach’ which was non-existent.  Around the northern edge of the lake and headed south again on it’s eastern shore, the lake revealed itself from the road better and gave us multiple entry points, including a place we could actually walk (more like tip toe) across the crusty soft sand and touch the super-salty brown water.

The lake has many strange characteristics, besides being un-swimmable or usable in any way.  It is said that the Salton Sea holds enough of the precious metal lithium on it’s seabed to meet America’s requirements for many decades and all this while the authorities can’t figure out how to clean up this toxic mess.

Salton Sea was also once a popular tourist destination and numerous holiday towns sprung up, such as Bombay Beach which we pulled into for a closer look.  Back in the 1970’s and 80’s this was a boom place for people looking for a lakeside vacation until the authorities realised the water was becoming more and more polluted and it became completely unusable. 

These holiday towns slowly disappeared but Bombay Beach still holds on, attracting an eclectic crowd of artists, society avoiders and people who want to live in what is basically an unlivable place. 

More scenes from photogenic Bombay Beach…

To add to this – can we just call it weird – place, we went up to a community called Slab City which was perched on a gentle slope near the town of Niland.  Slab City may have been something else at one stage but today it is a collection of old RVs, caravans, mobile homes and other assorted shelters scattered across the desert, all in a very poor state of condition, some of them run down, burned down or otherwise unlivable. 

But some of these homes are lived in by people who at least in part have forsaken society, the 9 to 5 lifestyle, barbers and the modern conveniences of life.  Instead these hardy souls eek out a living of sorts by selling bits of art and craft to visitors who are fascinated by this very alternative lifestyle.  To each their own.

More scenes from Slab City…

We made our way to the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area where a range of massive sand dunes stretch as far as you can see in both directions and tower hundreds of feet high.  It’s not the Sahara Desert, it’s not the Simpson Desert, pinch yourself because it’s southern California, only three hours from Los Angeles.  California has it all.

We camped that night up on the slopes of the Black Mountain range, trying to minimize the oppressive heat but instead only catching a strong dry wind which rocked us all evening.  The dark jagged mountains surrounded us and the desert wrapped its arms around us again.

Southern California had surprised us with amazing scenes such as Anza Borrego State Park, the Salton Sea and Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area.  We were looking forward to crossing into Arizona and see if they can beat that!