The Anza Borrego visitor center is built partially underground to blend in with the surrounding desert, and is found just outside the town of
Borrego Springs, close to the most popular site in the park, Borrego Palm Canyon, which has a large group of California fan palm trees around a desert oasis, from where a stream flows through a valley filled with particularly abundant flowers and cacti. The approach from the west is via County Road 22 that provides the most spectacular way to enter the park; built in 1964 by gangs of prison inmates, it starts from the flat, grassy Montezuma Valley at 4,000 feet then begins a descent via Culp Canyon, which has mixed vegetation of bushes, yucca and agaves. Another characteristic feature are large outcrops of smooth granitic boulders, and overall the scenery is quite similar to parts of Joshua Tree National Park. The focal point is Culp Valley, an area near the top of the canyon,, which also has a primitive campsite, springs and hiking trails.
Approach on S22: Several bends in the road later, the desert flatlands in the centre of the park first come into view, still 1,500 feet below. The straight roads of Borrego Springs extend to the horizon, framed by distant mountains to the left and right. S22 reaches the valley floor after 8 more miles of sharp bends and steep inclines, and enters a zone of quite different weather conditions - the temperature is usually at least 10° hotter, and clouds tend to linger on the mountain tops but do not extend over the hot desert where the sun predominates.
Coyote Canyon: Another popular path near Palm Canyon is the
Panoramic Overlook Trail which ascends a few hundred feet to a viewpoint over the basin, while a longer hiking route follows Hell Canyon to Culp Valley, an ascent of almost 2,500 feet. Other small canyons cut into the mountains near the visitor center and can be reached from paved roads, but the vast majority of land to the far northwest is only accessible by 4WD - one long track connects S3 at Borrego Springs to a branch of CA 371 via Coyote Canyon, the longest in the park. This contains more palm groves, springs, streams and side canyons, but the whole area is closed from June to October to protect bird nesting grounds.
Highway 78: To the south, highway 78 enters from the west by a descent of Sentenac Canyon, crossing the park boundary at 2,500 feet and dropping quite steeply from grassy, partly-wooded plateau to a wide, desert-like valley at 1,300 feet. This has imposing mountains at either side with several side canyons that provide good plant and wildlife habitats, especially
Plum Canyon, on the south of the road 3 miles into the park. A short distance further is one of four developed campsites at Tamarisk Grove - a cool, tree-lined strip of land beside San Felipe Creek. Three short trails start from here:
Cactus Loop, which climbs up then down the side of the valley opposite past numerous specimens of mammillaria, oputia and ferocacti;
Yaqui Well, a longer (1.6 miles) path past more cacti to the reed-lined well, which is a small water source but was important for the native Indians and early settlers of the nineteenth century, and the
Bill Kenyon Overlook, a nature trail with good views of the valley.
Narrows Earth Trail: The valley narrows just before it opens out onto the central basin, and the sides become steeper and more rocky - this is a geologically unusual area with fault zones (associated with the main San Andreas Fault, some 40 miles to the east), mineral veins and buckled strata. One very short path (the
Narrows Earth Trail) has some information about rocks and plants of this region. CA 78 continues across a much more open landscape to Ocotillo Wells (see the The Northeast).
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