Southwestern Deserts: China Ranch, Anza Borrego

By Bob Difley

How to find desert boondocking campsites, the subject of last week’s post, dealt with finding and getting to a boondocking campsite and how to avoid problems. So this week let’s take a look at what to do and where to go after you find the perfect campsite.  This includes lots of different venues, such as historic sites, ghost towns, oases, towns, cities, national parks, state parks, nature destinations, birds and wildlife, events, water sports, rock hounding, and road trips.

There is a lot more to see in the desert than a first time visitor might think. Miners and ranchers have been exploiting the desert since before the gold rush, and cattle rustlers, horse thieves, gamblers, dance hall girls, stage robbers, railroad workers, preachers, and gunslingers have traveled the Old Spanish Trail as long ago as 1776, though a viable route was not established until 1829 when Santa Fe merchant, Antonio Armijo, led 60 men and 100 mules to the San Gabriel Mission in Southern California by combining trails blazed by various explorers including mountain man Jedidiah Smith and John Fremont.

China Ranch

You can wiggle your toes in the same sand along sections of the trail from the China Ranch Date Farm where the trail crosses the Amargosa River (photo) a mile south of the ranch. The history of the ranch is a unique slice of Old West history and the current owners (in the same family since 1970) have built a museum and hiking trails through verdant vegetation along China Ranch Creek as well as selling dates.

Camping is available in nearby at Tecopa Hot Springs and you can boondock on lots of BLM land. The Ranch lies on Furnace Creek Road from Old Spanish Trail Highway south of Death Valley and 50 miles north of I-15 between LA and Las Vegas.

Anza Borrego Desert State Park

At 600,000 acres Anza, in east San Diego County, is California’s largest state park  and should be on the “must see” list of RVers visiting the desert for the first time. Since the park has been protected for many years the Spring wildflower bloom is one of the best of the desert. As a desert learning place the park is un-equaled, with a first class visitor center (most of it underground with an earthen roof), an outdoor garden that will help you identify desert plants and wildflowers, a wildflower hotline (760-767-4684), 500 miles of dirt roads, 12 wilderness areas,  miles of hiking trails, palm tree oases (very popular with bird watchers), and big horn sheep (borrego in Spanish).

Borrego Palm Canyon (photo) is California’s third largest palm tree oasis and a popular hike. It has a year round water supply, is very verdant, lots of birds and wildlife (you can expect to see big horns here), and a water fall.

The trail begins at Borrego Palm Canyon campground a mile from the visitor center.  There are hook-up campgrounds in the town of Borrego Springs (which is also the supply center for the park), near the visitor center, and boondocking and primitive campgrounds are scattered throughout the park.

More desert locations on next week’s post. In the meantime, check out my website for more RVing tips and destinations and for my ebooks, BOONDOCKING: Finding the Perfect Campsite on America’s Public Lands, Snowbird Guide to Boondocking in the Southwestern Deserts (now available in a Kindle version), and 111 Ways to Get the Biggest Bang out of your RV Lifestyle Dollar (also in Kindle version).