Borrego In 2 Days
Day 2
Spend your second day exploring Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Connect with nature and discover a world of pristine wilderness — a world of cacti and canyons, badlands and oases. With 500 miles of dirt roads, 12 wilderness areas and 110 miles of hiking trails, the park provide visitors with an unparalleled opportunity to experience and the wonders of the Sonora Desert.
Squeeze your way through a narrow siltstone passageway, Slot Canyon!
Hiking “The Slot” offers a unique experience in Anza Borrego Desert State Park. It’s usually a few degrees cooler than most hikes in the area and it is a rare one with shade. This is a short hike but the beauty is undeniable. The trail is fairly well marked and there are good directions online to access the trail.
Explore the desert in a military truck for an off-road excursion
California Overland offers desert tours of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park year-round. All excursions vary in length, itinerary, type of vehicle and activity level. From public to private tours, from 2.5 hours to full-day excursions. An off-road meandering will show you the real Badlands and you can experience the intense desert together.
Watch the Sunset at Fonts Point overlooking the Badlands
This spectacular area, with its arid rocky geography, sunken mesas and corrugated hills of dry mud, is called the Badlands of Anza Borrego. Font’s Point may be the best place in North America to view sediments of the Pliocene and Pleistocene Epochs. The twisted sedimentary layers resemble a miniature Grand Canyon of washed-out, rainbow-colored hills. The best time of the day to see this is sunrise or sunset.
Be sure to look up at night
After a day of wandering and exploring, be sure to look up to the sky. One of only two International Dark Sky Communities in the world and the first in California, Borrego Springs was rated by “USA Today” as one of the top ten stargazing locations in the nation. The quiet of the area combined with the dark, star-filled sky, surrounded by vast parkland, the town is uniquely protected from urban lights. The community, known for lacking even stoplights to pollute the brilliance of its dark, dark nights, has long been a haven for stargazers.
The very top of the park’s Visitor Center—the roof—is the perfect venue for evening stargazing, and the park offers special stargazing evenings throughout the fall and winter. Don’t forget binoculars for an unforgettable “excursion” through the Milky Way and several constellations. Park rangers and docents will impart stories along the way. There is no charge, and reservations are not necessary. Just check the schedule online.
For a unique tour of the stars, schedule one of astronomer Dennis Mammana’s “Borrego Night Sky Tours.” Sights that will keep you longing for ink-colored skies are visible every night in the Anza-Borrego Desert. This personalized tour of the cosmos reveals colorful stars, stellar clusters, planets, nebulas, distant galaxies and more.