Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Hike through the dry confines of Anza-Borrego's Harper Canyon and emerge in spacious Harper Flat.
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 reward for the trek, which takes about three hours for each direction, is the sense of splendid isolation you get all along the way, and at the destination itself.
Barrel cactus
You'll need an Anza-Borrego parking pass before starting this or any other off-road trek within the state park. Call 760-767-4205 or 760-767-5311 for more information. To get to where you can start hiking, drive east on Highway 78 to a dirt road intersecting at mile 87.2. Go 1.6 miles south to a T-intersection with the old Kane Springs Road. Turn right, drive 0.2 mile west, then veer left on a dirt road trending southwest. Park there, or drive farther on if your vehicle allows.
The road skirts an area known as the Cactus Garden, where barrel cacti, especially, grow thick and as tall as seven feet. When the roadbed ends, the walls of Harper Canyon narrow, then widen again as tributary canyons split off on both sides. A better name for the canyon would perhaps be "Ironwood Canyon." You'll pass hundreds of these slow-growing, dense-limbed trees in the next three miles. These will offer at least semi-shade if the day is warm and sunny.
After some intermittent, easy scrambles over rock dikes or ledges, you'll begin to see smoke trees and desert-willows, with foliage even less substantial than that of the ironwoods. Then, at 4.5 miles from Kane Springs Road, you'll come upon the broad expanse of Harper Flat. Curiously, Harper Canyon drains most but not all of Harper Flat. The flat more closely resembles an elevated plateau than a river valley.
Soak in the silence -- or if the spirit moves you, scramble up the ridge to the north about 400 vertical feet to a small promontory at 2628 feet elevation. There you get a superb view of the smooth expanse of Harper Flat and various landmarks to the north, including the Santa Rosa Mountains and the Salton Sea.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Hike through the dry confines of Anza-Borrego's Harper Canyon and emerge in spacious Harper Flat.
Hike through the dry confines of Anza-Borrego's Harper Canyon and emerge in spacious Harper Flat.
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 reward for the trek, which takes about three hours for each direction, is the sense of splendid isolation you get all along the way, and at the destination itself.
Barrel cactus
You'll need an Anza-Borrego parking pass before starting this or any other off-road trek within the state park. Call 760-767-4205 or 760-767-5311 for more information. To get to where you can start hiking, drive east on Highway 78 to a dirt road intersecting at mile 87.2. Go 1.6 miles south to a T-intersection with the old Kane Springs Road. Turn right, drive 0.2 mile west, then veer left on a dirt road trending southwest. Park there, or drive farther on if your vehicle allows.
The road skirts an area known as the Cactus Garden, where barrel cacti, especially, grow thick and as tall as seven feet. When the roadbed ends, the walls of Harper Canyon narrow, then widen again as tributary canyons split off on both sides. A better name for the canyon would perhaps be "Ironwood Canyon." You'll pass hundreds of these slow-growing, dense-limbed trees in the next three miles. These will offer at least semi-shade if the day is warm and sunny.
After some intermittent, easy scrambles over rock dikes or ledges, you'll begin to see smoke trees and desert-willows, with foliage even less substantial than that of the ironwoods. Then, at 4.5 miles from Kane Springs Road, you'll come upon the broad expanse of Harper Flat. Curiously, Harper Canyon drains most but not all of Harper Flat. The flat more closely resembles an elevated plateau than a river valley.
Soak in the silence -- or if the spirit moves you, scramble up the ridge to the north about 400 vertical feet to a small promontory at 2628 feet elevation. There you get a superb view of the smooth expanse of Harper Flat and various landmarks to the north, including the Santa Rosa Mountains and the Salton Sea.