Into the wild
A few weeks ago I took my boys to the Anza-Borrego State Park. This is a desert area, and spans 600,000 acres of Southern California. It is the largest state park in the United States. It's about two and a half hours from my home.
We drove through the ranchlands of Ramona and Julian to get there. Julian is famous for its apple orchards and apple pies. We stopped at the Julian Pie Company, and ate warm pieces of apple pie with hot chocolate. I love pie. My boys were restless here, they wanted to see rattlesnakes and mountain goats, not blue-haired women and muscled truck drivers sighing over pie.
To get to Anza-Borrego, you can take either S-2 or S-3. Both are narrow county roads with switchbacks and hairpin turns. I decided to take S-2, and we found ourselves traveling through ranchland filled with cattle and horses and one lone turkey farm. We pulled over to watch the turkeys, and ran up the sides of the hill bordering the road, and peered over the fence. The turkeys looked exotic, like strange birds from some far-away country. They were sleek and streamlined, covered in black feathers, with a steely look in their eyes. They ran along the rocks and scrub as a pack, mimmicking the patterns of flocks of sparrows in the sky.
The reason I chose S-2 is simple. You pass through twenty miles of ranch which slowly gives way to mountains errupting from the roadside covered in graffiti-scribbled boulders. It feels comfortable and small, kind of desert-lite, with cacti and succulents gently replacing chaparral. It feels friendly and kind. It feels just the right amount of expansive, a safe amount, where you can count every bush in sight, and could count the rocks given one good lazy day. And then the road dips and burps and you turn a corner around a seemingly insignificant hill.
You've entered an alien world.
I've traveled this road many many times now, and each time I am transported to Mars or Europa or someplace off-planet and wild and scary and breathing myth and pathos. The hill you innocently lurched around is but the top of a mountain of death and fire, covered in so many boulders and rocks it would take every lazy day of your life to count. And as far as your eye can see are more mountains just like the one your car is thundering down, rising out of badlands, rising out of ocitillo and juniper.
The boulders are perched like a house of cards, looking like a chain of dominoes waiting for a six-year old, and ominous signs reading "watch for rock slides" dot the road in an uncomfortable number. 16 stared wide-eyed for a moment and then said "Jeeeeeeeeeesus!" followed by silence, followed by a sheepish "Sorry, Mom." I'd never taken him here before, and though I kept saying "wait till we turn the big corner, just wait, you won't believe it!" he rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath how boring the ride was, until this moment, until the landscape held him mental hostage.
We barrelled down the road. We could see the Salton Sea in the far distance, beyond the mountains, beyond the badlands, a jewelled expanse of green, like an emerald buried in sandstone. 9, who is afraid of everything, cowered in the back seat, telling me to take it slower, to be careful, asking me if the rocks would slide and bury us alive. 7 asked me if we really were on a different planet and I said no, no, our planet has many faces, some gentle and inviting, some desolate and aching.
It's ten miles from the top to the bottom, and we pointed and stared and OOooood and AAhhhhhd the entire way. We parked at the entrance to the state park, and jumped out of the minivan, into the hot sunshine and dust. The Visitor's Center is wedged into the side of a small hill, partly buried in the sand. We walked inside to get a map of the hiking trails and a kind volunteer named June told us to walk the Palm Canyon Trail to the oasis and then to drive out to Font Wash.
The Palm Canyon Trail starts at the campground. It consists of a three mile loop, the center point being a shimmering desert oasis with water and palm trees. The ranger at the entrance advised us to bring a gallon of water and to stick to the trail. He told us how people die in this desert, even on this short trail, from exhaustion and dehydration and snake and scorpion bites. It was the wrong thing to say to 9.
The lavender was in bloom and it scented the trail along with sage and some scents I could not identify. I showed the boys how the Native Americans rubbed sage on their bodies to cover their human odor while hunting, and we stood in the sun rubbing leaves on our arms and necks as other hikers passed with quizzical looks.
The Anza-Borrego desert terrain is sparse. Ocitillo, with its spindly branches that sprout from one central point, stand guard. I tell the boys how this cactus grows leaves when it rains, and the leaves grow old and colored and die days later, like it races from summer to autumn, only to repeat again upon the next rain. 9 listens to my nature ramblings, but 7 races ahead on the trail and 16 stares into the canyon and up the hills, ignoring me, watching for mountain goats. The ranger had explained that a herd of 50 goat live in this canyon, but that they are nearly impossible to see. We don't see any goat this trip, but I feel their watchful presence.
The wind picks up as we venture into the canyon. It blows the hats from our heads, and we laugh and scramble over rock and scrub to pick them up. We see a huge dust storm in the distance, far into the badlands, and it gives 9 another thing over which to worry, his face scowled at the site of it, his third-grade fists clenched, ready for action.
It is an easy hike, and magical. We see snake holes and ants. As we approach the oasis, the wind shifts and a cloud blows over the sun. The switch from desert to oasis is as alien as that of ranchland to desert, and we are transfixed by the site of running water and hundreds of palm trees. The wind shakes the palms and round shiny black seeds rain down on our heads. It seems impossible that this exists in such an arid and unforgiving region. Hikers were scattered around the grove, eating power bars and chugging bottled water, all quiet, all in awe.
The hike back to camp was quick and silent, much windier than before. We all held one hand to our heads, keeping our hats in place, and half-way back I scooped 7 up and put him on my shoulders.
The drive to Font Wash was mysterious and magical, too. It requires four miles of off-road driving, so we turned the van into the sand and hiccuped our way across the desert floor. I didn't know what to expect, the terrain in front of us was desert like what we left behind. Four miles of bumping our heads against the roof, four miles of rolling and pitching. We stopped at the clear end of the way. A sign pointed to the hill in front of us. It said "Scenic View." We piled out of the car and held hands as we walked to the top. It was not a high hill, maybe 150 feet tall, and the slope was easy.
The hill did not slope gently down the other side. We stood at the top of a sheer cliff, and in our view, as far as our eye could see, were the badlands of Anza-Borrego. It was our third alien planet in one day. It spread, small and colorless, as devoid of life and light as anything I have ever seen. Thousands of striations and hills and mesas, all gray and brown, like the Grand Canyon of Hell. We only stayed a few minutes, somehow the sight of it was disturbing, and our minds were saturated from the desert and oasis.
We took S-3 home, the route that eases you out of the desert and into the rolling trees and vines of Julian. The sun was setting and as we left the desert, the spring rains began and followed us home.
7 looking into the desolate Anza-Borrego valley
3:43:15 PM 
|
|
