Continued...
Today's hikes in Anza-Borrego SP were all around Blair Valley, a popular
camping area in the middle of the park. There was a YMCA camping group
of several hundred people occupying a large area when we arrived. At the
end of the day they had packed up and completely cleared out when we passed by,
save for the 4 porta-potties and a lone red camp chair that someone had
forgotten. We left half of our cars at just off paved S-2,
using the three jeeps to drive us to the various starting points. None of the
day's peaks were long nor more than class 2, but it still proved enjoyable.
Fox Hound Point
This was the shortest and easiest of the day's outings, found at the northeast
corner of Blair Valley. We could drive to of the peak within
1/4mi of the summit and it would take us less than 20min to climb the steep,
boulder-strewn to the summit. A few loose pages placed less
than a year earlier served as . There are neat views of Little
Blair Valley to and Blair Valley to .
Snows on the Laguna Mtns and added some contrasting color to
the greens of the valleys.
Quake BM
Found at of the valley, this one was barely longer
than Fox Hound Point. is about 10ft higher than
, found a short distance north of the
highpoint. Daryn Dodge had left a register at the benchmark ,
no one signing in until our arrival. Bill led the group the
hill after a brief stay, finishing up around a quarter to ten.
Peak 3,459ft/Blair Peak
These two summits are found at the southern end of Blair Valley, less than a
mile apart and could be done together in a triangular loop. We moved
a short distance though it was hardly necessary - it would only save
a few minutes' time from starting where we did for Quake BM. We went to the
further and higher of the two first, Peak 3,459ft. We had a pleasant stroll
across
of Blair Valley for the first 4/5mi, then an to
for the last 1/3mi. The granite-topped summit held
left by
Mark Adrian a few years earlier. So far it's accumulating entries at the rate
of about one per year. To
is Mason Valley separating our low perch
from the much higher and snowy Laguna Mtns, making for as fine a view as one
can find in Anza-Borrego. It took us about 45min l from one
summit . The featured a much busier
with 12 pages of entries, thanks to its inclusion on
terracache.com. On to the vehicles, Tom and Karl made a
detour to visit PB-only Rich BM, a sad little bump near the valley floor.
Rego BM
Matt, Iris and Bill ,
leaving four of us to finish the afternoon's
agenda. Rego BM is located on the west side of the highway at the northwest
end of Blair Valley. It rises more than 1,000ft above the pass where S-2 first
enters the valley and the distance was about 1.4mi each way. While Patrick
stayed behind to futz with his solar array and charging system,
three of us the East Ridge on what turned out to have the
nicest hiking of the day. While the other peaks boasted plentiful rock and sharp
cactus things, Rego BM had much less of both after the initial climb up from the
road. had a with open, green
and Tom struggled to find something to complain about.
We spent most of an hour to reach ,
arriving around 2:15p. Another very busy register was found here, dating
. It featured an entry from Andy Smatko ,
only a few years before he died. Our was a bit
faster, getting us to Patrick and our vehicles shortly after 3p.
Seyer BM/Peak 3,290ft
Our last stop of the day was to Peak 3,290ft, found in the southwest corner of
Blair Valley. We drove south on S-2 for a few miles, parking on the right side
of the road at a large turnout where we were about 3/4mi
. Karl
pointed out that there was another PB-only benchmark on our way, so we spent
some time making a slight detour to find it. I didn't have it on my GPSr, so we
were navigating by the peakbagger app on our phones, mostly letting Karl do the
leading until he hesitated once too often and we resorted to making fun of him.
In and out of one minor wash to another, the search seemed a bit lost until I
spotted a tall pole sticking out of a cairn.
While Karl had his eyes glued to his
phone, I sarcastically turned to Tom and said, "Do you suppose
that's
it?" And it was. To be fair, Karl would have found it without our help, but it
was fun to ride him about it nonetheless. It seems that someone has taken the
trouble to put all 275 of the San Diego County benchmarks on peakbagger.com and
they have become somewhat popular destinations, much like Rego, Rich and Quake,
earlier today. Paul Frieman, an early San Diego Sierra Club explorer who was
prominent in the creation of their peak list, had left the register
. Wes Shelberg, another of similar mold, had visited only a
few months later. We added our to the Seyer BM register
before to the more impressive
Peak 3,290ft which at least
looked like a peak rather than a survey
marker. It had Richard Carey's familiar red cans left
with most of the names recognizable. The , someone
from NZ, had been here
earlier in the day, an odd coincidence, considering there's only 2-3 parties
visiting each year. It would be after 4:30p by the time we'd made our way back
to the cars, taking a somewhat different, more direct route on
now that we didn't have Seyer BM to mess with.
We returned to Stag Cove where we'd spent the last few nights to pick up Karl's
car and shower before heading to Borrego Springs for dinner. We tried to eat at
Patrick and Tom's favorite 70's-era dining establishment at the Borrego Golf
Resort, but we were strongly discouraged by the hostess since they were
short-staffed and had only one cook. so we ended up at Kieslings Kitchen for a
second night which wasn't bad at all. We later retired to the trailhead for
Travelers Peak (also called Palm BM) where we spent the night.
Continued...