Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is the largest state park in California and I’d never heard of it!
It’s located in the Colorado/Sonoran Desert of southern California, is about an hour and half from San Diego and essentially surrounds the city of Borrego Springs. This park is known for its desert landscapes, slot canyon hikes and in spring, its wildflowers.
Unlike most California state parks it is also allows for boondocking. Anza-Borrego has a few official campgrounds but also offers free dispersed camping in designated areas. Boondocking does mean, however, that there are no amenities – no bathrooms, trash collection, etc. so if you pack it in, pack it out. One of our more unusual overnight stays in the area was at an off-highway-vehicle parking area – but it was wide open and quiet for the night and close to a great slot canyon hike that we took the next day.
Nearer the town of Borrego Springs is an unusual sculpture garden spread across several acres of desert property called Galleta Meadows. Apparently, Mr. Avery (of Avery labels fame) purchased over 100 gigantic metal sculptures that are set out on either side of State Route 3, just south of town. The (much) larger than life sculptures of everything from horses to dragons were made by artist Ricardo Breceda and people are welcome to explore on foot, horseback or bicycle to check out each piece. As a side note, we happened upon Breceda’s huge outdoor gallery near the town of Aguanga as we made our way towards Temecula on Highway 79 later in the trip. This outdoor display of hundreds of metal sculpture pieces is free to tour and absolutely worth the stop, especially if you want to purchase anything (priced from $20 to $20K).
The small “town” of Warner Springs is west of Anza-Borrego State Park and is home to the Sky Sailing Glider Port (www.skysailing.com) located at the Warner Springs Ranch Airport. Doug had a glider license before he learned to drive. He calls soaring his “first love” of all of his flying, but he hadn’t had access to gliders for many years – actually since he’d last flown with Sky Sailing – just before they moved their operation from Fremont California to Warner Springs in 1988! Hmmm, it may be that Doug had an ulterior motive in planning this particular segment of our route, as he was suspiciously quick to sign up for a few flights with an instructor to start the process to of getting current on his rating for gliders (a process which he completed on a return visit just after the new year).
Sky Sailing has knowledgeable instructors, well-maintained gliders and planes, and a friendly staff who even allowed us to camp at the back of the airport overnight, enabling Doug to fly more while in the area.
There’s also a Harvest Host winery nearby called Sierra Robles that was a great place to stay and was just one of several additional boutique wineries along Highway 79.
I wouldn’t say that Anza-Borrego was my favorite desert or that Warner Springs had my favorite winery, but there’s enough going on in the area that it would make for a nice long weekend – and definitely don’t miss the chance to take a glider flight!
