‘Going on a bear hunt’
Ihave a friend who would sing this little song with her pre-school class, and the song has stuck with me as a good travel ditty. “Going on a bear hunt to see what we can find ….” Well, it wasn’t a bear hunt, but I was becoming antsy and irritable with all of this high falutin’ city living. I needed to get out of town and breathe some fresher air.
I stopped to fill up and $25 dollars prepay got me three quarters of a tank of gasoline at a local station. In Yuma a week ago, $20 got me close to a full tank. It’s the high cost of California living, and, ok, cleaner fuel. A favorite stop is Las Conchitas where I bought a fresh torta with jalapenos and a few empanadas as a reward. A reward for what? For eventually hiking three miles although I’m sure the cream filled empanada wiped out any gains from the hike. Still it was very enjoyable to sit against a huge boulder eating my torta and looking out over the desert. The empanada was a well-deserved desert dessert.
I’m guessing that the drive from El Centro, west on I-8 to the S-2 turnoff in Ocotillo and north on S-2 to Bow Willow Campground is maybe 45 minutes to an hour. However, it’s hidden from Valleyites who gravitate to the dunes in eastern Imperial County. A major reason is that Anza Borrego State Park is not for off-roaders. It’s for hikers, picnickers, and landscape looky-loos. One of its major attractions for me is the quiet there. S-2 winds its way northwest first through Ocotillo. The road passes by the Imperial County Fire Department and the Lazy Lizard Bar. Once out of town, the highway passes by the $500 million wind turbine field, crosses the county line into San Diego County, and exhales as it enters the boundaries of the park.
There’s a steady climb up S-2, and my first stop is generally the Carrizo Badlands Overlook on the east side of the road. The rolling hills open and a canyon appears to the east. It’s useful to have someone riding shotgun so they can keep an eye out for the overlook turnoff. It’s a fairly rough dirt road but my Camry has no problem negotiating it as long as I take it slow. There are a couple of turnoffs so it’s ok to miss the first one. If you pass the sign for the Canyon Sin Nombre, you’ve gone too far. If you are driving a four wheel drive with good clearance, you can drive down into the canyon. It’s very dramatic with a drop of several hundred feet. The canyon and the badlands are a geologist’s dream since some of the rocks here date back a half-billion years. Much of the geology is due to the overflowing of the Colorado River and the shallow inland sea that once existed. The overlook is dramatic to say the least. The view to the east across the Coyote Mountains out to the Fish Creeks is spectacular. This sure isn’t New Jersey. It’s a place I go to recharge my batteries. Listen to the wind.
I drive another 10 minutes up S-2 to the Bow Willow turnoff and drive west on a sandy road. It’s well maintained. Once at Bow Willow Campground, I pay my $5 day use fee and start my hike out in the desert. It’s an easy trail of rolling hills and beautiful landscape. Over a year ago, everything was in bloom after the big rains of 2017. This year it’s extremely dry. There’s an occasional red bloom on an ocotillo or chuparosa, the hummingbirds’ delight. On the drive out of Bow Willow, I always see large, beautiful jack rabbits in the same area. It’s an unmarked, secret rabbit crossing.
It’s ok if you don’t hike. Just drive up S-2 this time of year and stop at the Vallecito stage station county park for a picnic. It’s the wide-open wonderful spaces, the reason we live in California. Enjoy Anza Borrego State Park.
Richard Ryan lives in El Centro and welcomes your comments at rryan@mail.sdsu.edu