Hike Borrego Palm Canyon, Palm Mesa, Indian Canyon Traverse Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, CA

Feb 24, 2024 — After the typical flip-flopping in our plans that we're prone to do on peakbagging trips, Chris and I settled on hiking a strip of mountain range on the north side of Borrego Palm Canyon that extends past Indianhead. This ridge doesn't seem to have an official name, though Palm Mesa was a notable label on topo maps. The peaks included on this hike are unnamed Peak 4445, Palm Mesa High Point, Peak 4824, Cody Benchmark, and Pike Benchmark. All of these are pretty difficult to reach for various reasons. From the west, despite the existence of roads leading to higher elevations, access would require trespassing on the Los Coyotes Reservation. Coming from the south is a long hike through often rugged terrain. Because of the angle of the ridge, the east would make it difficult to grab more than a couple of these summits during a single day outing. The north is currently closed to motor vehicle traffic, resulting in a long and boring walk through open desert. Since we had two cars and the roads in the area are paved or good dirt, we figured setting up a shuttle wouldn't be too painful. This would allow us to see a lot more of the area as well.

The night before we drove along Coyote Canyon Road, which ultimately leads to the Indian Canyon Trailhead near Sheep Canyon Campground. This trailhead used to be an ideal starting point for many of the peaks on the north side of our traverse, but the access road was severely flooded, prompting Anza-Borrego Desert State Park to block all vehicular access indefinitely. We managed to drive through a deep creek crossing and were feeling pretty cocky, thinking maybe we could drive a lot farther. This crossing may prevent anything better than a Crossover SUV from continuing, but after less than half a mile, we were confronted with an unexpected locked gate anyway. We parked our end car at this gate (33.36883, -116.42131), a bit under 5 miles away from the Sheep Canyon Campground, which meant a long hike back after we completed our traverse.

Our friend Yossi joined us the morning of our hike. He pulled up to find Chris and myself sipping on coffees at a cafe in Borrego Springs at the lazy hour of 7:30 am. I'm not sure why we were so nonchalant about starting a big day so late, especially knowing the day use area closes at sunset, but here we were! We purchased a day use pass at a kiosk near the visitor center, then drove our starting shuttle start car to the Borrego Palm Canyon Trailhead. We made quick progress to the native palm grove. A 2020 fire burned the grove, and now access to the palms is restricted since they're within a restoration area.

A social trail continues past the Borrego Palms and farther up the canyon. This is often used for the standard route to reach Indianhead, which rises up at the southern end of our ridge. Although adding this peak would make the traverse feel more complete, we thought it would add too much additional time if we tacked it on. I felt a bit bad about skipping it since Indianhead is likely the most interesting peak in the park, but my friends could come back if they wanted it enough. There's a short section of boulder-hopping past the palms that slows progress, but with some foresight, the obstacles can be kept to a minimum. The canyon twists around a bit, usually clear of brush and boulder-hopping, but with an occasional obstacle mixed in.

Years ago when I'd hiked Indianhead, I wanted to explore farther up Borrego Palm Canyon, so I was excited to have a reason to return. Unfortunately, our chosen exit from the canyon was only a few hundred feet past the standard route for Indianhead, so I guess a deeper exploration of Borrego Palm Canyon will have to wait yet again. In hindsight, our chosen traverse might have been better as a loop, where we could have dropped from our last peak down into the northern reaches of the canyon instead of traversing north, but of course, the bushwhacking could have been miserable within the canyon. It does seem to get more brushy and far less traveled farther up, so who knows if it would be worthwhile.

We passed through a couple of additional palm groves and purified some water in the flowing creek since it was insanely hot already. Starting out of Borrego Palm Canyon we took the steep ridge toward Peak 4445, which was reasonable, but included agave that cholla that kept blocking our way. We zig-zagged around the prickly pests as we ascended about 2000 vertical gain to a point where the ridge eased up a bit and curved north. Past this point we encountered some pleasant Class 2 along the crest that was mixed in. The steep views down into the narrow canyon and palms within were gorgeous from up here. We continued north to the summit on terrain alternating between rocky and lightly brushy as we watched Indianhead shrink below us.

Peak 4445's summit was a nice viewing spot for the rest of our traverse to come, the tallest and final two summits still quite a distance away. We could also see the extended ridgeline of the Santa Rosa Mountains to the northeast across Borrego Valley, Rabbit Peak poking up right in front of us. Next up was Palm Mesa High Point. We descended from Peak 4445, sticking just left of the crest for the most part on less brushy terrain, then ascended from the saddle on a steep and sometimes rocky slope. There are various little lumps and benchmarks that surround Palm Mesa that peakbaggers enjoy hiking to which appear on popular peakbagging lists, but we were only interested in the ranked (300+ feet of prominience) peaks along this ridge. So, without dallying or planning to hike these extracurriculars, we descended Palm Mesa High Point's west ridge into a drainage below.

Initially, I thought it made sense to ascend Peak 4824 via its direct eastern slope, but my friends made the right call and recommended we instead take a canyon that wraps around the peak's north side and approach via its more tame-looking north ridge. Not only did this skip the brushy and steep slope, but more importantly, we got some really cool canyon features and dryfall obstacles to play on. This tributary of Borrego Palm Canyon was really beautiful and introduces some Class 3 moves, most of which can be wrapped around by exiting the canyon briefly. The north ridge of Peak 4824 had some brush, but it wasn't bad at all, and the summit was a nice lookout toward Borrego Palm Canyon below.

Next up was Cody Benchmark, a much taller and brushy summit to the west. We descended Peak 4824 toward Cody Benchmark's base, which was almost immediately quite steep. Fortunately, the brush looked far worse than it was, though we had to duck under some limbs and dodge larger pockets of growth. Farther up there were various rock outcroppings and boulder obstacles that added some Class 2/2+, and you could easily find yourself on Class 3 terrain if not planning ahead. It was difficult to determine the best way to the ridgeline above, so we kind of just plodded through the brush and rock and got up in a reasonable amount of time. Cody Benchmark had nice views of the San Ysidro Mountain Range and Hot Springs Mountain across Borrego Palm Canyon, and of course toward our last summit, Pike Benchmark to the north. It was at this point we realized we might not be getting back to the trailhead before sunset. We called the park and tried to explain to the rangers where we were and that everything was fine, and just hoped we wouldn't get a citation. The rest of the day was about moving quickly to facilitate this.

We chose to descend a brushy gully with a steep sandy slope that was fun to slide down, but wouldn't be as much fun to come up if approaching from the opposite direction. We then joined Pike Benchmark's wide southern ridge and made our way up. Along the way were some more boulders to wrap around, and near the summit the terrain became choked with them. You can keep left to avoid the whole cluster, but we added some Class 3 fun by directly heading through the boulders. Pike Benchmark is a label on maps located just east of the high point, so we hiked to both. From the benchmark we could trace our ridgeline route descent. The Sheep Canyon Campground within Collins Valley below was very far away still.

From Pike Benchmark we headed south first before dropping down to avoid cliffs on its east face, then descended a really steep and sandy slope with occasional rock outcroppings leading down to its base. We navigated lumpy terrain until reaching the standard ridgeline previous hikers have used to get up to this area, which descended directly north for thousands of feet. It's overall just a nice grade with a social trail much of the way, and the slopes on either side drop away sharply enough that the views felt more expansive. As we neared the base of this ridge, the social trail petered out and we descended the final brushy bit into Indian Canyon.

We had no idea what to expect within Indian Canyon, but it was not the bushwhacking hell we encountered. For about a quarter mile, we dipped in and out of Indian Creek, searching for the path of least resistance. The banks were overflowing with dark and thorny bushes, while the creek had a thick wall of slightly more pleasant foliage. Short stretches of open grasses quickly died out. Eventually, we made it through and located the eroded Indian Canyon Trail. Once we located the trail it was smooth hiking for a few miles. The setting sun lit up the desert floor and the various flowering cacti. We reached a junction with the Coyote Canyon Trail, a spur leading into what looked like a pretty canyon. I was disappointed we didn't have time to explore it since it's unlikely I'll be back this way anytime soon since the long schlep on the closed road puts a damper on visiting the area.

The Indian Canyon Trail ended just west of the Sheep Canyon Campground, and we took the excellent dirt road on foot, at first unsure why it had been closed. Then we crossed the wash that had flooded a deep chasm into the road, and shortly after this, the road was completely washed away, leaving only an occasional state park signpost sticking out of the ground. There were a surprising number of footprints, far more committed hikers willing to walk a road than we'd expected. Rather than follow the road, we took the red-blazed official Sheep Canyon Trail, which led directly east before rejoining with the road about a mile later. The road became the Coyote Canyon Bypass, definitely not suitable for anything other than the most burly vehicles. The road continued in horrible shape as it paralleled Coyote Creek and led back to the locked gate where we'd left the ending car shuttle. It seems quite unlikely the road will be improved or reopened anytime soon.

We drove back to the Borrego Palms Trailhead and actually ended up returning just after sunset. There were still many other day hikers at the trailhead, so we'd avoided a citation. I'd recommend not cutting it this close with timing. The Borrego Palms Campground has really cheap showers that are available for day hikers as long as you purchased a day pass, so we absolutely took advantage of this wonderful service. Overall, this was a nice traverse in a remote part of Anza-Borrego State Park that really allowed us to see the variety of landscapes and peaks in the area.