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
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 vegetation that used to slow hikers' progress has been stripped away. On September 10, 2004, a wall of water at least 20 feet high sloshed through the narrower parts of the canyon. This was the result of an isolated, intense summer-afternoon thunderstorm that dumped buckets of rain over a relatively small area of the San Ysidro Mountains, northwest of Borrego Springs.
In Borrego Palm Canyon, the rushing water uprooted hundreds of native California fan palm trees, floating them out past the mouth of the canyon toward Borrego Palm Canyon Campground. A mudflow hit the campground itself, causing considerable damage that has since been largely repaired. Dubbed a "hundred-year flash flood" by some, the event was indeed a rare occurrence for that particular location in the Anza-Borrego Desert -- but not at all unusual for the geographical region as a whole.
Since that September flood, several more inches of rain have arrived in the greater Borrego Springs area by means of conventional winter storms. The above-normal cumulative rainfall has already produced a first wave of early wildflower blooms at the mouth of Borrego Palm Canyon. Given enough sunshine in the coming days, a spectacular floral display should be unfolding here by late this month or in February.
Navigating the route into Borrego Palm Canyon is simple. Begin at the trailhead parking area at the far (west) end of Borrego Palm Canyon Campground. Either of two routes can be followed toward the "First Grove" of palms: a somewhat circuitous alternate trail toward the left, or the main 1.5-mile-long trail (parts of which are rerouted) that sticks close to the flood-scoured canyon bottom, which is full of freshly tossed boulders and assorted prone palm trunks. Whatever route you take, look for desert bighorn sheep grazing on the vegetation upslope. They've become inured to the presence of humans over the past couple of decades and don't seem to mind the pedestrian traffic.
First Grove is a ghost of its former lush self, its stream-hugging riparian vegetation peeled away along with nearly all lower-lying palms. Fan palms are invasive wherever water is permanently present, as it is here. They will return in force to this site over the next quarter century.
Beyond First Grove, the route is officially trail-less and not for casual tourists. The game is to work your way up the canyon, sometimes on sketchy paths high above the canyon bed, and more often along the flood-scoured bed itself, which is paved unevenly with sand and rounded rocks or granitic or metamorphic bedrock slabs.
At 3.3 miles from the start, the South Fork of Borrego Palm Canyon branches obviously to the left (southwest), its discharge of water less than that of the main fork. A spectacular double-cascade of water lies 0.4 mile ahead up this rough gorge -- a worthy destination for motivated hikers willing to clamber over angular rocks.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Last summer's flash flood in Borrego Palm Canyon paved the way for easier access into the canyon's upper reaches.
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 vegetation that used to slow hikers' progress has been stripped away. On September 10, 2004, a wall of water at least 20 feet high sloshed through the narrower parts of the canyon. This was the result of an isolated, intense summer-afternoon thunderstorm that dumped buckets of rain over a relatively small area of the San Ysidro Mountains, northwest of Borrego Springs.
In Borrego Palm Canyon, the rushing water uprooted hundreds of native California fan palm trees, floating them out past the mouth of the canyon toward Borrego Palm Canyon Campground. A mudflow hit the campground itself, causing considerable damage that has since been largely repaired. Dubbed a "hundred-year flash flood" by some, the event was indeed a rare occurrence for that particular location in the Anza-Borrego Desert -- but not at all unusual for the geographical region as a whole.
Since that September flood, several more inches of rain have arrived in the greater Borrego Springs area by means of conventional winter storms. The above-normal cumulative rainfall has already produced a first wave of early wildflower blooms at the mouth of Borrego Palm Canyon. Given enough sunshine in the coming days, a spectacular floral display should be unfolding here by late this month or in February.
Navigating the route into Borrego Palm Canyon is simple. Begin at the trailhead parking area at the far (west) end of Borrego Palm Canyon Campground. Either of two routes can be followed toward the "First Grove" of palms: a somewhat circuitous alternate trail toward the left, or the main 1.5-mile-long trail (parts of which are rerouted) that sticks close to the flood-scoured canyon bottom, which is full of freshly tossed boulders and assorted prone palm trunks. Whatever route you take, look for desert bighorn sheep grazing on the vegetation upslope. They've become inured to the presence of humans over the past couple of decades and don't seem to mind the pedestrian traffic.
First Grove is a ghost of its former lush self, its stream-hugging riparian vegetation peeled away along with nearly all lower-lying palms. Fan palms are invasive wherever water is permanently present, as it is here. They will return in force to this site over the next quarter century.
Beyond First Grove, the route is officially trail-less and not for casual tourists. The game is to work your way up the canyon, sometimes on sketchy paths high above the canyon bed, and more often along the flood-scoured bed itself, which is paved unevenly with sand and rounded rocks or granitic or metamorphic bedrock slabs.
At 3.3 miles from the start, the South Fork of Borrego Palm Canyon branches obviously to the left (southwest), its discharge of water less than that of the main fork. A spectacular double-cascade of water lies 0.4 mile ahead up this rough gorge -- a worthy destination for motivated hikers willing to clamber over angular rocks.