I left work a little early on Friday, and with the Land Cruiser already packed up and ready to go, we headed out as soon as I got home. We took our time getting out there, headed out Split Mountain Road to the end of the pavement and dropped into Fish Creek Wash. We didn't have a ton of light left to search for the best, most remote, awe-inspiring campsite we would have liked to find, so we settled on the empty primative campground at Fish Creek so that we could let the kids run around in the dirt and chase lizards while we set up camp while there was still light. The campground is fairly secluded, and we couldn't even see passing vehicles in the wash below.
This was our first chance to try out my new toy I got for Christmas, a camp dutch oven. We had camped with people before that had these, and they seemed awesome. They basically allow you to cook food like you would in an oven at home, except in your camp, and it opens up quite the list of possibilities for camp food. You heat the cast iron oven with charcoal briquettes on the lid and underneath. Our first meal in the new oven was a pot roast with vegetables. It turned out better than I expected, and it was fun to try something new for camp dinner. It must have been good, because we had this bold desert mouse that kept coming into our camp looking for scraps. For dessert, we attempted peach cobbler in the dutch oven. I obviously didn't read the recipe correctly, because it wasn't going to win any awards in any cook-offs. It tasted fine, but it just wasn't pretty. But it was still good, and was still fun to have something new on our trips.
After a decent night's sleep (the weather was a little brish, but pretty nice for January), we awoke to a beautiful morning. One of my favorite things about camping away from everyone is how serene and peaceful the mornings are as the sun is just coming up and beginning to cast light onto the mountains or hills around you. I love just sitting there with freshly pressed coffee, just taking it all in. Well.....until the kids get up and its back to crawling over rocks and in the dirt and being loud....but that's all good fun too. For breakfast, we figured we'd continue the theme of all things dutch oven and tried cinnamon rolls. They were a little burnt on the bottom as we were still figuring out the fine tuning on the camp oven, but I thought the new culinary tool had potential as we learned how to better utilize it.
We packed up camp and went out to explore the Fish Creek Wash area. The wash extends through Split Mountain and there is some high scenic value to the easy drive. It is interesting to see the layers of sedimentary rock that accumulated over all of the years, as it is said that water used to cover much of this area long ago. One of the most interesting sections this layered rock that was shaped like a dome, clearly out of place with the rest of the horizontally layered rock. I later learned this was called an "anticline".
We ran the Fish Creek Wash trail until it intersected with Sandstone Canyon. I had read that this was a one-way in and out narrow slot canyon that was absolutely beautiful. It didn't disappoint. There was a group of Jeeps that were out in front of us as we came to Sandstone Canyon, and knowing that it eventually narrows down until you can go no further, we decided to wait them out as they entered. We pulled off and made lunch as the kids climbed hills and rocks (yes, they do that quite often). As we were finishing up our lunch, the group came back out and we started into the slot canyon. We drove back into the canyon, with these massive sandstone walls on either side of us. It wouldn't be the best place in the event of a flash flood, but there was no chance of that the day we were there and it was amazing. We got to one tight spot that we barely squeezed through, and then kept going a little further in, past a 4x4 club that had stopped for lunch. We drove back a bit further and the trail did start to narrow down, so we went as far as we felt comfortable doing in the Cruiser and then parked. We went further into the canyon on foot for a beautiful hike. I remember thinking that this would be a great place to backpack in and camp in the canyon if it was allowed.
We passed by the 4x4 club on the way back out and there was one XJ Jeep that was attemping this crazy extreme hardcore bypass to see if he could to it. And with some amazing spotting and driving (and lockers), he did it perfectly. It was pretty impressive. We came back through the easier route through the squeeze and headed back out of Sandstone Canyon back to Fish Creek Wash. Another great hike in this area is the Wind Caves, but we opted out on this trip because of my knee. But I would like to do it another time in the future though.
We headed back home via Borrego Springs and got to see more of the metal sculptures on the south end of town. The eagle bringing a snake back to the nest was the most impressive sculpture on the the south end. The sculptures on the north end of Borrego with the sea serpent and all of the others are pretty awesome.
Even though it was a quick overnight trip, we felt like we got to see and do quite a bit in the short amount of time and it was fun to explore that area of Anza Borrego.
