Marissa, Seb, D-rock, Tim, Aurelien, Ashley, and I left San Diego kind of late on Friday, bound for Anza Borrego. Aurelien and I were driving. He got ahead and stopped in Julian to get an apple pie. Because of our late start we weren't going to have very much time to get around the loop. We planned to drive through Split Mountain and leave our cars somewhere on the other side. Split Mountain is pretty much what it sounsd like. Here's a pretty cool anticline in the walls of Split Mountain.
Here's Aurelien's beauty ride coming through Split Mountain. The road was pretty awful. Those of us in my car were amused by Seb. When Aurelien's car came to a big rock in the road, Seb would scramble out of the car, run up front to move the rock to the side of the road, and then they would continue onwards. Early on we came to one really bad spot. We contemplated parking and walking from there, but after reconnoitering we decided that we could probably do it. An SUV was horribly stuck off to the right; we were going to drive over some rougher terrain to the left.
After coming out of the mountain I saw a tarantula on the road in front of us. We stopped to admire it. Tim kindly put his hand in the photo for scale, even though we told him that the tarantula would most likely jump onto his arm and scramble up it. As we were about to continue someone mentioned that they smelled gas. We backed Aurelien's car up onto a little ledge (it was our jack) and Aurelien peeked under his car; it was leaking gas. A scrape, sustained in the nasty portion, had put a hole somewhere in his car's underbelly. Everyone else started walking over to the Elephant Knees-Mud Hills area, while Aurelien and I left in our cars. There are tons of off-roaders in the Ocotillo Wells area, so we figured they might be able to help us; we stopped at various repair shops, but no one could offer any help. Eventually we parked Aurelien's car at a gas station in Borrego Springs. If it was empty when we left the next day, we could fill it up and hopefully head home. We drove back to Split Mountain in the dark. It was beautiful coming through the canyon in the dark. At the end of the drive Aurelien uncorked a bottle of wine. He needed a drink.
We parked at the Mud Hills trailhead, grabbed our stuff, and started walking. It was an amusing walk, puncuated by the pop of the cork coming out of the wine bottle whenever we wanted a sip. The "backpack" couldn't have been more than half a mile. We found everyone pretty easily. We had Tasty Bites for dinner. Tim had never had them before and was amazed at how tasty they were. He was very happy to be out in the desert; he'd been working hard. We had two bottles of wine. We were all completely satisfied, and then Aurelien pulled the pie out of his backpack. Tim hadn't known about it and was very impressed.
After dinner, Tim was so happy that he walked up a nearby mud hill and started singing. In the morning we all thanked him for the serenade; he had thought that he was high enough so that we couldn't hear him. As we were all bedding down D-rock climbed a mud hill. I was half asleep, staring at the stars, when I saw a really bright star. It started shaking and seemed to be coming closer. I eventually realized that it was D-rock's headlamp as he was descending the hill. D-rock's star is the bright one in the center of the photo. Ashley, Tim, Aurelien, and I slept outside. Marissa and Seb slept in my tent. D-rock slept in his tent; he always has bad luck sleeping outside.
I woke up early the next morning as soon as it got light. I forced myself out of bed earlier than I would have liked because I wanted to take some pictures of the Elephant Knees and the Mud Hills as the sun was coming out. I scrambled to the top of the Elephant Knees, taking pictures all the way. It's really an awesome, sculpted landscape. The shadows were beautiful in the morning. The view of the Mud Hills from the top of the Knees was great. I could see our camp tucked down among the Hills. The cleft in the horizon in the middle picture is Split Mountain.
When I got down everyone was slowly starting to drag themselves out of bed. Ashley was nicely cocooned in her bag. The air warmed quickly with the sun up, so we sheltered in what little shade remained. There was some debate about how to finish the loop, considering we hadn't done any of it. Aurelien ran to the top of the Knees. We packed up camp and started the long slog back to the car.
On the way out we stopped in the Mud Hills to play around. Everyone posed on various hills and I took a 360 degree picture. D-rock did some nice handstands.
Of course we had to take a traditional rock star photo. Marissa is probably smiling just like Ashley.
Here we are on the grueling hike out. Marissa has the pie bag tied to the back of her backpack. We ditched the packs in my car and then made our way back to the actual loop. Some off-roading trucks are coming past us in the photo to the right.
The first portion of the hike took us through various washes. We spied lots of butterflies clustered on some yellow bushes. As we started to climb out of the last wash we found some other funky plants.
Here we're climbing up out of the wash/canyon. We left the canyon because it was blocked by a puddle of water. Our route would take us around the other side of Split Mountain. D-rock and I had pioneered this overland route earlier in the year. There were lots of ocotillo; some sprouted out of D-rock's head. In the middle picture, Seb and Marissa climb up to the ridge. In the background are the washes and canyons we wandered around earlier.
This is the view from the top of the ridge. We stayed really high on the ridge, keeping the canyon to our left, and after a while we downclimbed back into the canyon. The Elephant Knees are in the background of the photo.
Now we're back in the canyon, scrambling through some nicely carved portions.
The canyon eventually petered out. We followed it as far as we could, and then headed for the broad ridge to the east. We dropped down over the ridge somewhere behind D-rock and his cactus friend. There is a good view of the canyon we dropped into in the second photo from the right; we found ourselves in another canyon, bordered by the ridge on the right. We followed that canyon out onto the flat plan behind.
Here Tim scrambles down the really step bits to the canyon floor. It was kind of a sketchy descent. The canyon eventually dumped us out near the turnoff for Fish Creek. It's faster to walk straight out to the road than to try to cut across to the entrance to Split Mountain.
After we reached the road Aurelien, Ashley, and I walked through Split Mountain to get the car. The rest of the group found a golf ball and started smacking it around while we slogged back. The evening light was gorgeous as we walked through the canyon. It was a long day. I think the hike is around 14 miles. I had a rock in my shoe that gave me a blood blister. I didn't want to stop to take it out.
We packed all seven of us in the car. Seb and Marissa were in the passenger seat. Ashley laid across D-rock, Tim, and Aurelien in the back. Our bags were crammed in the back and straped on top. I was very happy to be driving. After picking everyone up some annoying off-roaders roared passed us, leaving us to pick our way out in a dust cloud. We picked up Aurelien's car, which actually still had some gas in it. We stopped at, in D-rock's estimation, a horrible Mexican restaurant on the way home. Us meat eaters liked it alright.
