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 
the entrance 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
the base of the peak within
1/4mi of the summit and it would take us less than 20min to climb the steep,
boulder-strewn 
west slope to the summit. A few loose pages placed less
than a year earlier served as 
a register. There are neat views of Little
Blair Valley to 
the southeast and Blair Valley to 
the southwest.
Snows on the Laguna Mtns and 
Granite Mtn added some contrasting color to
the greens of the valleys.
Quake BM
Found at
the southeast corner of the valley, this one was barely longer
than Fox Hound Point. 
The highpoint is about 10ft higher than
the benchmark, 
the latter found a short distance north of the
highpoint. Daryn Dodge had left a register at the benchmark 
in 2017,
no one signing in until our arrival. Bill led the group 
back down 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
our vehicles
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 
the flats
of Blair Valley for the first 4/5mi, then an 
easy climb to
the summit for the last 1/3mi. The granite-topped summit held
a register left by
Mark Adrian a few years earlier. So far it's accumulating entries at the rate
of about one per year. To 
the west
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 
to travel from one
summit 
to the other. The 
second summit featured a much busier
register with 12 pages of entries, thanks to its inclusion on
terracache.com. On 
the way back 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
headed home,
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 
headed up 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. 
The ridge had a 
nice gradient with open, green
grassy stretches and Tom struggled to find something to complain about.
We spent most of an hour to reach 
the summit,
arriving around 2:15p. Another very busy register was found here, dating
to 1999. It featured an entry from Andy Smatko 
in 2003,
only a few years before he died. Our 
return was a bit
faster, getting us 
back 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
north of the peak. 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
in 1996. Wes Shelberg, another of similar mold, had visited only a
few months later. We added our 
own entry to the Seyer BM register
before 
heading up 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 
in 2016
with most of the names recognizable. The 
previous visitor, 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
the return 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.
Matt's Video
Continued...