Total mileage: 82 miles
Estimated Total climb: 6-7,000 feet.
Value: priceless. ![:)]()
Saturday March 19th, 2011 was the annual Tour of Borrego Springs. Some of the San Diego Recyclers bicycle club members were camping at Palm Canyon campgrounds and I decided to go too. However, I decided to ride from Julian to Borrego Springs and back.
My friend Carl has a place in Julian, so I contacted him to get permission to park at his place. He asked if he could join me, and so my first overnight camping trip began to take shape.
Carl picked me up at my house at 9:00 AM Friday. By the time we got to Julian, unpacked our bikes and got ready to leave, it was noon. We arrived at the campground about 3:30 PM.
We chose to travel to the town of Borrego Springs by way of Yaqui Pass. I personally haven’t ever gone to Borrego Springs before. But, my goal was to find a route that was about 30 miles and ended at the campground. This shows the route we took.
Julian to Borrego Springs Map
And here’s the elevation profile for the ride.
Elevation Profile Julian to Palm Canyon Campground
If you only looked at the elevation profile, you would think this was all an easy downhill ride, with a few small climbs on the way down. On some days you might be right, but not this weekend. It’s spring time, and there was a major storm coming in. The wind was 20+ mph sometimes, when we were riding. When we turned left onto Borrego Springs Road from Yaqui Pass Road, it hit us right on the face. We were both in our lowest gears, just barely making headway at times, into the wind. We started seeing some of the many steel sculptures that are all over Borrego Springs.
Mastadons in the desert
Carl suggested he take my picture with the sculptures in the background. This is what I looked like with my trusty Bike Friday folding bike and the suitcase/trailer with my camping gear.
The velorambler and sculptures
Some of the sculptures were easily identifiable. This one, I could only get a general idea of what the sculptor meant. It’s art, not necessarily a true to life representation. Birds have to be one of the most challenging things to sculpt with a torch and steel, this artists chosen medium.
Update: I was informed by Carole Ziegler:
The art piece is called the Incredible Wind God Bird *Ailornis incredibilis* was the largest flight-capable bird in North America with a wingspan of 16 to 17 feet. The sculpture is life size. Only six specimens of this four-foot tall bird have been found and three of them have been found in Anza-Borrego. More can be found in my latest guidebook of the area.
Eagle?
Of course we came to the desert in part, for the spring flower display. One of the most prevalent plants in the deserts of the southwest is the Ocotillo. In Arizona where I grew up, they only bloom every few years.
Ocotillo, Fouqueria splendens, in bloom
Sleeping outdoors seems always to lend itself to going to bed with the sun and waking up with it. There was a very full moon this weekend, but I haven’t figured out how to do time lapse with my digital camera. Gotta learn how to do that. The sunrise Saturday was gorgeous.
What is it they say?
Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.
Red sky at night sailors delight.
Sunrise March 19, 2011
Carl and I decided not to pay the fee and ride the organized ride. Instead we went riding around the area on our own. We rode out to the airport, turned around and rode back to Borrego Valley Road and headed north. These sculptures are near Henderson Canyon Road north of town.
Carol Ziegler says:
The "people" that Neil refers to are the DiGiorgio grape farm workers. When the farm workers decided to strike in 1965, key leaders were arrested. Cesar Chavez was one of them. The strike lasted 4 years and ended the DiGiorgio grape business. Borrego was the first place to be able to harvest grapes of the new season. Lots of history here. Again, more in the guidebook.
Carole’s guidebook is available from Sunbelt Publications.
Grape Pickers
I think you’ll see a trend here. This is the only sculpture we saw that involved people.
Tending the vines
Carl wanted to have his picture taken. Since he reads this blog, he probably figured he would get his picture here. You were right Carl! 
Carl wants in on the action
The arrangement of these sculptures creates a little vignette, of a vineyard.
Stringing wire
All of these sculptures are on a large privately owned desert property called Galleta Meadows Estates. Just the part where we saw the statues is quite large. I have no idea how big the whole property is.
Galleta Meadows Estates
I know where the sculptor can find some models near Ramona. More information from Carole Ziegler:
Camels, along with llamas and horses, actually evolved right here in Borrego and migrated to other parts of the world with the colonists bringing back the horses. Quite a round about way for us to have horses here today.
Camel in the desert
It seemed that for most of the ride, this was my view of Carl. Near the end of the ride we swapped bikes, and I found out why. His bike was significantly easier to peddle. I’m going to do some experimenting to see how I can improve this.
My view of Carl
The clouds dappled the hills as they whistled overhead. The wind made riding hard, but made for delightful light in the desert.
Mountains and wildflowers
In the macro view, there doesn’t seem to be a lot going on here. But if you stop and look, there are amazing flowers growing in the desert. And the scene changes day by day. Some flowers were obviously already spent, and some were just starting to swell with buds, promising new shows in the coming days.
Some blooming some yet to bloom
Carl seems to be quite the accomplished camper. I know he is much more experience than I have. I think his whole sleeping quarters, including tent, mattress and sleeping bag, probably weighed no more than just my tent. I’m not sure who was more comfortable though. I heard some log sawing across the campground. 
Carl in camp
The ants were something I had forgotten about. In the desert the ants seem to be nearly everywhere. They are the cultivators and farmers of the desert. This is one entrance to an anthill. Who knows how many more there were. Some I saw had detritus like this and some were clean. Some looked like little caves in the side of a creek bed. They were everywhere you looked around the campsite.
Industrious Ants
I took a great many pictures of plants. I don’t want to bore the world with my photographic minutia. But, I like the way this one came out. To give you some perspective the plants in the foreground are no more than 4 inches tall.
Liliputian's view
There is also plenty of wildlife in the desert, too. If you walk slowly and don’t make too much noise you might get a shot like this. If you enlarge the image by clicking on it, right in the middle is a quail. Later I heard the lookout calling, though I never saw him.
Quail
This next picture is pretty indicative of the view around Palm Canyon Campground.
View to the southwest
The jackrabbits were everywhere. Taking a picture of a jackrabbit with a point and shoot camera is a challenge. Several times I walked up on jackrabbits that didn’t move until I was withing a few feet. However, I didn’t see them until they startled me and ran away. This one only ran a few yards away. I kept walking toward him and shooting, in hopes I would actually get a picture that would display. What do you think?
Flowers and Jackrabbits
This was our campsite. Looks like Carl already broke camp and packed while I was off taking pictures of wildlife and flowers.
Our campsite
We left Palm Canyon Campgrounds about three Saturday afternoon. With the afternoon winds and unpredictable weather we decided we would start up the mountain with the plan to camp at Yaqui Wells. It turned out to be a good plan.
Here’s our route from Palm Canyon Campground to Yaqui Well Road, right across the road from the close Tamarisk Grove Campground.
Route from Palm Canyon to Yaqui Wells Road
The elevation profile doesn’t even begin to tell the story for this days ride. Just as we were about halfway up that long steep grade you see the wind started to really blow. I had to get off and walk several times because I couldn’t generate enough power to overcome the gravity and the wind. One gust stopped me in my tracks as I was walking up the hill.
Elevation Profile from Palm Canyon to Yaqui Wells Road
Here’s what it looked like as we were nearing the crest of the hill. We still had a few more miles uphill before the last downhill to the place we planned to camp. The picture below is looking back toward the town of Borrego Springs. Palm Canyon Campgrounds is on the left where you can see the ridge coming down to the desert floor.
Looking back at Borrego Springs
There is an amazing view of another part of the desert from the crest of the hill on Yaqui Pass Road – S3. It’s hard to capture the vastness of this view, with a point and shoot camera.
Desert Overlook
Shortly after this picture we found a place to wild camp in the desert. By the time we set up camp and prepared dinner it was getting dark. I didn’t think to take any pictures of the camp.
In the morning we broke camp and were on the road by 8. This is the route back to the car in Julian.
Yaqui Wells Road To Julian
As you can see by this profile it is a challenging ride.
Elevation Profile, Yaqui Wells to Julian
Near Scissors Crossing on Highway 78 is this monument telling about the Vallecito – Butterfield Stage Stop.
Vallecito Butterfiield Stage Station
This is the view looking back toward that monument at the next summit.
Long Hill Climb
And this is the view looking back down the hill, just before we climbed up into the pine forest, on banner grade.
Close to Julian
On the way up Banner Grade shortly after I took this picture, a team of women cyclists passed us. I believe they were from the Team Colavita. I estimate they were going up this grade at about 12 mph. Of course my bike with trailer, and packs weighs over 50 pounds and their bikes probably weighed under 20, not to mention they probably ride in a week what I ride in a month. So they were quite a bit faster than Carl and I. They did make friendly comments as the sped past.
It was a great adventure and I look forward to doing something similar maybe as soon as next month. And thanks to Carl for accompanying me on the adventure and teaching me some things about camping.
As Carl would say, keep the rubber side down and the shiny side up!
Until next time,
Velorambler
