Will civic San Diego help truly needy?
Don Bauder 7:01 a.m., June 19
Borrego Springs Stories
Attorney Found Passed Out in Car, Convicted of DUI
San Diego criminal defense lawyer Allen Robert Bloom, 61, was convicted of two DUI counts by a jury in the Vista courthouse on January 19. Deputy Andrew E. Dvorak testified that he could smell vomit ...
Borrego: Flipsville Seeks a Savior
For decades, financial carpetbaggers have pulled the wool over the eyes of the citizens of Borrego Springs, the unincorporated desert town of 2600 full-time residents in northeast San Diego County. Now Borregans hope that a ...
Sheep Canyon
Remote Sheep Canyon, secreted in the middle reaches of Coyote Canyon in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, features some of the most rugged yet beautiful terrain in San Diego County. The canyon has two main forks ...
Anza-Borrego's Pinyon Ridge
Like caterpillars marching to their own drummers, the rock-ribbed mountain ridges of the Anza-Borrego Desert nose this way and that, eventually finding their roots in the sand-drowned valleys sloping downward into the Salton Basin. The ...
Anza Borrego's Coyote Mountain
The desolate ridge of Coyote Mountain rises like the dark, furrowed flank of an elephant over the sand-drowned Borrego and Clark valleys in the north part of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Scattered amid slabs of ...
Solar Flare-Up in Borrego Springs
On Tuesday, January 11, the five county supervisors will decide whether to appeal a planning commission's decision to allow Eurus Energy to build a 341-acre photovoltaic solar energy system off of Palm Canyon Drive in ...
Hike to Anza-Borrego Desert's Rockhouse Valley
I had barely rinsed off the dirt and dust from our Thanksgiving trip to Carrizo Gorge when we found ourselves heading back to the Anza-Borrego Desert to meet up with a couple of friends. Our ...
Head of Borrego Water District Steps Down
"I have reluctantly decided that it is in the best interests of the community that I resign my position as general manager and allow the board of directors and the community an opportunity for a ...
Hidden Pictographs of Indian Valley
High up on a ridge overlooking the vast expanse of Anza-Borrego 's Indian Valley is a room-size rock shelter once used by Native Americans to honor and perhaps foretell the coming of the summer solstice. ...
Anza-Borrego's Font's Point Has Best View of Badlands
Q: What are badlands? A: “Wasteland” that has been eroded into unusual shapes by wind and water — originally from the French term les mauvaises terres. Our local version of this, the Borrego Badlands in ...
Borrego Springs Water District: Less Water Flows In, More Money Flows Out
Dennis Dickinson takes his dogs for a hike off Borrego Valley Road in Borrego Springs at 6:30 in the morning to avoid the heat. From the trail, Dickinson looks west toward San Ysidro Mountain. In ...
Long Gone
I signed Mary and I up for a day-trip to Harper Cabin, in the central part of the Anza-Borrego Desert with the Anza-Borrego Foundation. My reasoning for signing up for an organized tour was twofold: ...
Goat Canyon Trestle Trek
Tucked away in the southern end of the Anza-Borrego Desert is an engineering marvel that, due to its remoteness, has only been viewed by a relatively small number of people. The Goat Canyon trestle was ...
Ricardo Loves Dinosaurs...
The gigantic art project unfolding on the unlikely canvas that is Borrego Springs appears to have reached completion. Sculptor Ricardo Breceda says, “That’s it.” There will be no more additions. But Dennis Avery, the man ...
Tubb Canyon
Big Spring, tucked in a tributary of Tubb Canyon on the west side of Borrego Valley, is one of the more reliable water producers in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. As such, it’s an important ...
A Town Left Dry
People need money and water. Just ask Borrego Springs, the San Diego County desert town of only 2600 year-round residents. Through the years, it has endured failures of its major businesses, as entrepreneurs have run ...
Smoke Tree Canyon
Stark and barren, yet glorious in their nakedness, Anza-Borrego’s skeletal mountain ranges conceal more than they reveal to casual passersby. If you want to know them better, you must leave the security of the automotive ...
Flat Cat Canyon
Flat Cat Canyon is the curious name given to a rugged gorge southwest of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park visitor center and not far outside the community of Borrego Springs. Park rangers once found a ...
Harper Canyon
A long and leisurely ramble up the sinuous course of Harper Canyon in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park leads hikers to Harper Flat, a four-square-mile valley hidden from casual view by rock-strewn ridges and peaks. The ...
Sombrero Peak
Sombrero Peak rises head and shoulders above the southern precincts of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, its summit overlooking a hundred-square-mile expanse of rock-strewn mountains and gorges, sun-baked valleys, and shimmering badlands. Conversely, the peak ...
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Another Perfect Day
BALBOA PARK Another Perfect DayBy downtownphotoguy, June 26Today we were in Presidio Park in the morning and Balboa Park in the afternoon. We were shooting with a variety of lenses and techniques…. It seems everybody ...
More Space for Us
Conservationists are suing the federal government to restore nearly 468,000 acres of critical habitat to protect an endangered sheep living in areas like Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. A lawsuit filed in San Diego on October ...
Mine Canyon
Tranquil Mine Canyon and its several tributaries slash deep into the Pinyon Mountains of central Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Day after day, year after year, the parched ravines and boulder-splintered hillsides lie open to the ...
Weather Warning
At 5:46 p.m. on Saturday, September 5, the National Weather Service issued a severe weather warning for northeastern San Diego County, near Borrego Springs. On the Weather Channel, the news-crawl bulletin was repeated over and ...
Off Road on Private Land
In January 2005, Alan Inn bought 816 acres in Ocotillo Wells, smitten with the desert’s rugged beauty. A general contractor with experience ranging from residential remodeling to government projects, Inn planned to build a “wellness ...
Desert Maneuvers
“How do you establish camps, find water, and fight long-distance when it’s 110 degrees? If you’re not acclimatized, you’re fighting your environment and not your enemy,” says Fred Jee, supervising ranger for the Anza-Borrego Desert ...
Desert of the heart
There’s been another development in the slow but steady liquidation of the newspaper holding company of late Union-Tribune owner Helen Copley. Last week Copley Press quietly recorded a document giving GP Associates LLC, run by ...
Father Joe and Kevin Faulconer
Thirty Years Ago While San Diego County has grown sharply, this desert community of 1200 people has stood still. Today Borrego Springs has one auto mechanic, one air-conditioning expert, one plumber, one electrician. If a ...
Visit three palm oases in the midst of one of Anza-Borrego's driest quarters.
Smack dab in the middle of the most desolate part of the Borrego Badlands stands a remarkable triad of palm oases. The best known of these, Seventeen Palms, is a popular destination for park visitors. ...
Explore the near or the far reaches of Sandstone Canyon, one of Anza-Borrego's most dramatically sheer landforms.
Sandstone Canyon has been called the most spectacular small wash in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Like a hidden jewel, this particular natural feature requires time and effort to find -- and it is often necessary ...
Borrego Springs, 92004
Sure it was 117 degrees a few days ago and we have to drive more than an hour to buy organic vegetables or underwear. We don’t have a movie theater or a Thai restaurant and ...
Visit Anza-Borrego's Cool Canyon on a warm autumn afternoon.
Cool Canyon, a deep crease in the east flank of Granite Mountain, stays truly cool only for a month or two before winter solstice, and for a couple of months afterward. If you visit the ...
Cool off under the dribbling flow of Maidenhair Falls, in Anza-Borrego's Hellhole Canyon.
In the midst of what is regarded as one of America's hottest and driest deserts, it seems a bit surprising to find a place where mosses, ferns, sycamores, and cottonwoods flourish around a sparkling waterfall. ...
Explore a lonely corner of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, and visit a site of archeological interest.
Sunny winter days are perfect for exploring San Diego County's population-equivalent of Saudi Arabia's Ar Rab al Khali, or "Empty Quarter." Virtually no one lives in the county's northeasternmost 100 square miles, an arid region ...
Explore the wilds of Cougar Canyon, tucked into a remote, northern corner of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.
Anza-Borrego's Cougar Canyon is a place where new worlds open up at every turn. There are more gorgeous sights to see along a half-mile of this canyon than in a full day's hiking in most ...
Explore the Truckhaven Rocks -- tilted sandstone slabs on the flank of Anza-Borrego's Santa Rosa Mountains.
The shorter fall and winter days of low-angle sunshine, clear blue skies, and pleasantly mild temperatures are perfect for exploring any of Anza-Borrego Desert's lowest, hottest, and driest regions. The Truckhaven Rocks, out past Borrego ...
Coach Of The Year
Football is upon us, and the corporate sporting press floods the valley with pigskin-preview articles. The Box can do no less. Introducing Borrego Springs High School JV and varsity football coach Randy Peyakov. Borrego Springs ...
Watch evening shadows race across Borrego Valley from Panorama Overlook.
Off-season (a.k.a. "summer") camping in the Anza-Borrego Desert isn't as outlandish as it may seem -- particularly if you confine your visit to the darker two-thirds of a 24-hour day. On just about any August ...
Villager Peak, high in the Santa Rosa Mountains overlooking Borrego Springs, challenges off-trail hikers.
Dotted with weather-beaten pinyon pines, Villager Peak in the southern Santa Rosa Mountains rises nearly a mile above the lowlands of Anza-Borrego Desert. Serious "peak baggers" from around the state are drawn to its summit ...
To Kill and Impregnate
'Even though the animal was dead, it was a real encounter to know there was a [mountain] lion there, to know this is where it fed on this animal," says Deborah Knapp, manager of the ...
Discover the botanical oddities known as elephant trees in a remote corner of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.
Elephant trees (Bursera microphylla), once considered exceedingly rare in California, have turned out -- after decades of searching and serendipitous discovery -- to be not so rare north of the international border. Still, the scattered ...
Perforations galore pock the soft sedimentary canyon walls of Arroyo Tapiado in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.
Along the canyon walls of Anza-Borrego's Arroyo Tapiado ("Mudwall Wash"), weathering and erosion acting on friable sedimentary rock have produced a strange kind of topography known by some geologists as pseudokarst. Like karst topography, which ...
Explore the winding tributary washes and canyons of Fish Creek, deep in Anza-Borrego's Carrizo Badlands.
Deep in the corrugated folds of Anza-Borrego's Carrizo Badlands, a trio of sinuous dry washes invites your slow and careful exploration -- first by truck or 4-wheel drive, and then by foot. Here, on the ...
As the Anza-Borrego Desert cools from torrid to merely warm, try a refreshing hike to the viewful summit of Mine Peak.
Mine Peak, elevation 1850 feet above sea level, stands atop the west end of the Coyote Mountains in far-southern Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. On a clear fall or winter day atop Mine Peak, the view ...
Visit Anza-Borrego's West Fork Lizard Canyon, where geological and botanical wonders delight the eye.
With canyons and ravines numbering in the thousands or tens of thousands, the one-thousand-square-mile Anza-Borrego Desert State Park offers a lifetime of scenic exploration. Even the smaller canyons of the park offer a variety of ...
Boulder-hop to the top of Granite Mountain, overlooking the Anza-Borrego Desert.
Granite Mountain massively swells along the western edge of the Anza-Borrego Desert, its flattish summit presiding over hundreds of square miles of brown desert to the east and the timber-dotted Laguna and Cuyamaca Mountains toward ...
Last summer's flash flood in Borrego Palm Canyon paved the way for easier access into the canyon's upper reaches.
For now and for the next several years, the normally slow and painstaking trek ambitious hikers make into the middle and upper reaches of Borrego Palm Canyon will be considerably easier. Much of the impeding ...
Descend on the Jasper Trail from Anza-Borrego's cool, western margins to the warm desert floor.
The 11-mile-long Jasper Trail-Grapevine Canyon route takes hikers and all sorts of wheeled travelers -- on mountain bikes and motorcycles, or in off-road-capable vehicles -- down a series of inclines from Anza-Borrego's cooler western margins ...
Descend from the high desert to low desert on Anza-Borrego's California Riding and Hiking Trail.
The old, never-completed California Riding and Hiking Trail, pieced out of dirt roadways and previously existing trails during the post-World War II years, has never quite disappeared from San Diego County. One branch of this ...
Seek out rare elephant trees in Anza-Borrego's Torote Canyon.
Dozens of elephant trees cling to the walls of Torote Canyon, a tributary of Indian Gorge in the southern reaches of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. In Mexico, this tree is called torote, which means "twisted," ...
Discover "The Slot" and colorful Hawk Canyon at Borrego Mountain in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.
Amid the windswept wastelands of the Anza-Borrego Desert, Borrego Mountain's twin buttes (the East and West buttes) rise with low and broad profiles. From a distance they may look unremarkable, but at close range they ...
