Calipidder

We spent the first couple days of our trip exploring the southernmost side of Anza Borrego (along S2), basecamped at Agua Caliente Hot Spring. It was nice to camp there since we had the nice hot pools to come back to at the end of the day!
On Monday we checked out two areas I had [...]

One of the most popular hikes in Anza Borrego is Borrego Palm Canyon. But just a short drive south of this canyon is Hellhole Canyon. Hellhole has a similar set of Palm Oasis, a seasonal waterfall with ferns, and a lot of fun rock scrambling.
This was our second visit to Anza Borrego and although our [...]

On the northern side of Anza Borrego there are the remains of an old calcite mine. In operation around WWII, they mined optical calcite for use in gunsights. It didn’t last long, since around the same time a synthetic alternate was discovered, making the mining of calcite financially no longer feasible. What is left are [...]

Instead of flying to Michigan this year to see our families, David and I stuck around California for the holidays. We both missed our families, but it was such a relief to not pay ridiculous amounts of money to be incredibly inconvenienced and probably stranded in Chicago or Denver or some place that was neither [...]