[Bloated Chipmunk]

Yesterday Brian & I headed out to Anza-Borrego once again for a nice desert hike. We opted for something pretty short, & combined it w/a quick side trip to a palm grove. Even still it took all day long. We reached the TH by taking the 8 to S2 to S. Indian Can Rd. Two border check points , a missed turn , & 1 long sandy rd. later & we were on the trail by the crack of 10:45. There were no other cars @ the TH.

TH

The route begins as a gentle westerly climb up a canyon, then turns southish up a steeper side canyon. There was a trail of sorts marked by ducks & was easy to follow...most of the time.

Headin' up the wash

Views back down

We reached the top of the canyon & turned W/SW toward Sombrero, its true summit unclear until near the end. The trail sort of fizzled out so then we just picked our way up the brush & boulders.

Brian heading up the rocks

View eastish

View southish

The home stretch

Big ass rock

At this point I was pretty tired, presumably from walking several miles the day before. I was ready to get to the top & laze for awhile. Once on top, we enjoyed 360-degree views atop lg. boulders.

Summit views

Summit views

Summit views

Summit views

Summit views

& of course I had to sign the summit register, which included some really old notebooks w/entries dating back to 1970.

Summit register

OMG 1970?!?

Brian signing the register

BB & BC on top

We spent @ least an hr. on top soaking up the sun & taking in the views. We spotted the palm grove down below that we planned to check out on the way down.

Pointy rock

Palms far below

Back to a flat area

Cholla

Once back down @ the saddle, we turned southish to head downhill to where we thought the palms were. We joked about them being "just around the next corner" all the while what we didn't realize is that they were closer & higher up than we thought. After cursing ourselves for taking such a circuitous route, we sucked it up & traversed a nasty steep slope full of cholla back to the west, climbing back up to the elevation of the palms.

Brian heading toward the palm grove

Palms

Barrel cactus

We sat down on a big rock & took in the views to the SE.

Late afternoon

Wonder what this pk. is....

Then it was time to work our way back through the cholla to the saddle though this time we were able to cut off some distance & avoid the steep slope we had come across. We saw more cool rocks along the way.

Cholla slope

Heading back to the saddle

Balanced rock

Wispy clouds

Clouds

Once back to the top of the main canyon, it was easy travel the rest of the way down since we had a trail to follow. Once again we made it out around sunset.

Sunset

[MountainMan]

Wow! It looks like you guys had some really nice views up there! It looks familiar from when we were there before, but we weren't really able to summit any peaks on that trip, except for that one viewpoint. I hope I can get a chance to visit all these places you're going at some point. The weather is sooo much nicer there too. It's nice here sometimes, but today at work for example I was getting soaked for awhile by rain and high winds blasting me. It's cool that you found some more palm trees (and avoided the cholla). I remember we were trying so hard to find some that first time we were there and finally we spotted a couple in the distance from our camp as it was getting dark. I like all the interesting rocks too. So is that mystery peak your next destination?

[puzzlr]

I really like the reminder of those wide views unimpeded by think stalks of carbon emerging from the ground. The NW is lousy with that stuff. Gotta get down to the SW again soon.

[Bloated Chipmunk]