As we consider sponsoring outings with other Angeles Chapter sections, and consider a 2025 GLS gathering in the desert, here is an article which appeared in the Jan/Feb 1994 issue of TRACKS, about an outing in Anza Borrego State Park 31 years ago, sponsored by the Desert Committee. with GLS leaders. Recently, Beth was able to find some snapshots from that trip in her archives and scanned them to appear here. In 1994, TRACKS did not include pictures at all, so Beth’s pictures appear here for the first time. Also included, at the bottom of this page, are a few photos from a slightly less adventurous GLS outing nearby in Anza Borrego State Park in 2009.
Led by Asher Waxman and Beth Epstein
By Beth Epstein, from the January/February 1994 issue of TRACKS
This Desert Committee trip was a rain check for a trip which Asher Waxman and I decided to cancel last February when heavy rain made Clark Dry Lake a wet lake and a vehicle hazard. We couldn’t have asked for better weather this time; the following weekend we would have seen the snow falling in the Laguna Mountains to the west. It was also a trip I had been thinking about ever since first driving by the wide mouth of Clark Valley on the way to the Salton Sea from Borrego Springs; there is something so tempting about the breadth of that mountain gap, and it has been tempting visitors and settlers of Anza Borrego through time. My curiosity about the area was piqued by hints in Lowell and Diana Lindsay’s Anza Borrego Desert Region about archaeological remains in the vicinity. In fact, everything! read on the area excited my imagination – Jerry Schad writes about it in detail in his San Diego County guide, and John McCully reported his backpack through the area to Toro Peak in the Desert Peaks Section Sage – and a scout of Coyote Peak one winter day at sunset left me longing to look across Clark Valley again to see the alpenglow on the ridges of the Santa Rosa Mountains.
Seventeen of us met at Pegleg Smith monument at 10 am Saturday morning, and caravanned 3.5 miles on good dirt road into Clark Valley along the west side of the lake and the start of the dayhike up the ridge of Coyote Peak recommended by Schad. It was a crystalline, sunny day, a little warmer than I had expected for November, in the high 70s, but perfectly pleasant hiking weather all weekend. Asher led the steep cross-country ascent mainly over open terrain, through some attractive benches sporting healthy stands of agave and ocotillo. There were beautiful outcroppings of metamorphic rock, including dolomite, and the ridgeline offered terraced rock exposures which made good hiking. Two participants chose to wait at the bottom after reassessing things after a hundred feet or so, but the rest of our large and varied group made it to the summit and back in good style. The views from the top of Coyote were great – up Coyote Canyon and Rockhouse Canyon, across Clark Valley for the entire length of the Santa Rosas and across the badlands of Anza Borrego. During lunch on the summit, Andrew confessed to being a geologist, and we pestered him the rest of the weekend. The area offers textbook examples of structural geology and fault activity (described by Paul Remeika in Geology of Anza Borrego: Edge of Creation). Until Andrew admitted his profession, I rambled on about the San Jacinto fault to mainly blank stares. Before heading down, Glo rejoined the group carrying a fully curled ram’s horn – a remarkable thing to see and hold. She returned it to its secret spot despite the surprising protest of a couple of members of the group.
As we approached the end of our ridge above the cars, Asher spotted some excellent campsites with firerings along the road at the edge of the mesquite thicket which bordered the dry lake. We had planned to drive farther up canyon, but it had been a long day and we were all ready to camp.
While everyone pitched camp and started to spread out their potluck contributions on Chuck’s tailgate, Glo and I drove 2 miles up canyon to the campsite we had planned to use to see if there had been any late arrivals. Four folks were waiting for us, and we returned to camp with them to find the potluck and campfire in full swing. Ground fires are prohibited in Anza-Borrego, so we had brought the basin of my Weber BBQ and set it in the existing firering and it served splendidly. It was a beautiful, clear, cold night. Luke pointed out constellations away from the campfire. We all ended up playing charades around the fire: I believe it was Asher who got Lady Chatterley’s Lover in one clue.
We got up at dawn. Asher made coffee for all takers and after piling everyone into the four available 4wd vehicles we hit the road for Rockhouse Canyon about 7:30. The driving was more challenging than we had all expected and it took about two hours to travel the nine miles to the mouth of the canyon, including a wrong turn as we rounded the ridge just past Butler Canyon. We were all thankful to stop driving and start hiking.
The canyon was pleasant walking, and the outcroppings of schist, twisted, striped and reflective, were very beautiful. Most amazing to me were the heavy, uniform layers of deposited rock and boulders which had been revealed by the erosion of the canyon’s channel. The sudden opening of the canyon into broad Rockhouse Basin felt like the discovery of a secret valley, marred only by the visibility of Toro Peak’s relay station on the horizon. There was a ducked trail to the remnant walls of the three Cahuilla Rockhouses, the sites of the last native settlements in Anza-Borrego. We all lunched there and wished we had time to walk the extra 3 miles to the remains of the Cahuilla village at Nicholas Canyon. Rockhouse Basin feels incredibly remote, surrounded by the Santa Rosas and inaccessible to vehicles. When Manuel Torte, the last chief in the area, and his family finally left for the Santa Rosa reservation at the turn of the century, Anglos were beginning to wander up the canyon prospecting. I wondered, gazing around that big basin, what the Torte family felt – was the intrusion of even a few strangers too much of a violation of that isolated place? Was life just too hard having lost the community of families and the chain of related villages in the Santa Rosas?
We arrived back at the cars about 3.00 and just managed to get back to camp by dark. We had planned to stop at Oh-My-God Hot Springs on the way home, and despite the late hour, almost everyone wanted to at least see the place. When we got there, we were puzzled to find the springs filled in and deserted, and were informed by one of the Ch-My-God denizens that just that week the landowner had been forced by the county to plug the hot springs with cement for reasons which weren’t entirely clear to me. So we all said goodbye and headed toward the Salton Sea and home. This Desert Committee trip was a great mix of GLS and non-GLS members, and we all laughed a lot and saw some beautiful country. I encourage GLS members to experience trips with different Sierra Club groups and sections. My thanks to Asher for co-leading and to all the participants; they made the weekend a lot of fun.
Photos from a GLS Valentines Day/Presidents Day outing in Anza Borrego State Park in 2009
