Split Mountain

When I was asked if I wanted to go out and view some Elephant trees, what else am I going to say except "Of course". When Roy told me about the trees he said it wasn't much hiking, so I invited the girls to go along. We did our usual thing, went to headed to meet Roy at his place, then headed south on Hwy 86. We stopped for some breakfast at the Red Earth Casino down by the Salton Sea. Soon we were passing through Ocotillo Wells and then took a sand and rock road about a mile to the trail head.

Dorothy and Charlene at the start of the trail. Oh, the energy of youth... .

The trail is a scenic little trail with interpretive markers along the way. We soon find ourselves at the Elephant tree. It seems that climatic conditions have caused this area to be less than ideal for the Elephant trees, so this is the only one left in the area. It seems to be a very healthy specimen to me. Let's hope it stays that way for a long time to come.

The trunk and branches remind some people of elephant skin, to me, not so much. I find this tree fascinating, it is related Frankincense and is mostly found in Mexico, with only a few trees left in Anza Borriego. The trees have a wonderful odor and the Native Americans considered them to have magical properties, particularly the red sap. This meant that only the medicine men could possess the sap and it was important for rituals and medicinal purposes.

After we enjoyed the short loop trail at the Elephant tree, Roy announced that we would be going to Split Mountain, that it was supposed to be a very significant geological area. Of course you normally have to beg me to go see geologically significant areas, but I agreed to make an exception this time. As we neared Split Mountain, we came into view of the larget gypsum mines in the country. This is the United States Gypsum Corporations' Fish Creek mine. USGC produces over half of the drywall in the USA. The Fish Creek mountains are our destination.

We make a quick stop at the Fish Creek campground for um, you know.

Fish Creek canyon goes right through Split mountain, hence the name. It's described as looking at the mountain from the inside. It certainly is spectacular.

We stop to explore a some granite boulders from a huge landslide.

In the huge landslide erosion has carved out some interesting side canyons. You can barely make out Roy at the bend in the canyon.

The wash is in good shape for driving, part of the huge landslide is in the background.

Just past the landslide we enter into a very different landscape, layers of sandstone that have been bended and twisted.

This canyon was caused by the Fish Creek fault, probably would be a bad place to be in an earthquake.

This is the one of the most famous areas of folded rock in the Split Mountain anticline. The fold here is popular with geology classes.

Dorothy, being the musician found the perfect echo location and now she's demonstrating the effects.

Looking out from Dorothy's echo location. The cliff on the other side of the canyon are 400 different in elevation to the side we are standing on, which explains why we don't see mirrored images of the folds.

We then drove on out to the end of the gorge. There we found the trail that leads to the Wind Caves. Once again the girls gave us a demonstration of their youth as they took off up the trail and we used the wisdom of our age to pace ourselves. After about an mile we caught up with them.

The hill off to our south is called the Elephant Knees. I suspect it's the gray band that gives it the name, when viewed from up close. There is some very spectacular scenery, which is why I stopped to take this picture and not to catch my breath.

The girls have arrived at the Wind Caves. It is a interesting area where erosion has caused the softer rock to weather away, leaving the holes and caves that we see today.

After exploring the area we headed back out towards the car. This time the girls are pacing themselves.

After reaching the car we continued driving to the west. Along the way we saw a interesting looking canyon and we stopped to check it out. In the canyon we found this feature, some amazing forces of nature at work created this. The conglomerate rock on the bottom is about 4 feet thick in this picture.

This canyon turned out to be a box canyon. There were the remains of an old camp, years not decades. We then headed back out through the cliffs.

Here was another interesting spot. The rocks sticking out of the wall are about 1 to 2 feet wide.

You would think that Charlene doesn't appreciate my fascination with geology.

Dorothy acting bored in this amazing wonderland of sculpted rock.

Charlene standing on a granite boulder wedged in the channel cut through the sandstone.

Roy is looking for the center of the concretion, wondering if it has a pearl or something similar in the middle, it didn't. We did tell him it was his mud egg and he was a mud hen. I won't begin to tell you how funny he thought that was, but eventually he let me ride inside the car again.

Another feature of the area is the shell reef. Here Charlene is hiking up to check out the shells.

The band on top of the cliff is made up of shells, more than I've ever seen at any beach.

After looking at a few billion shells, we continued driving to the west. I made Roy stop when I saw this little gully carved out of the sandstone. I consider the features to be sublime.

Sandstone sculpture as only nature could do it.

Dorothy checking out some of the features in this amazing little area.

Our next stop was the Sandstone Canyon, considered one of the most remarkable areas in Anza Borriego. Here is a picture taken as we were driving in.

Eventually we got out to hike and picked this slot canyon to explore.

Here was our turnaround point. The main canyon is in front of us. This is one of the most rugged areas I've ever been in, with some of the most prevalent cholla cactus I've seen.

Our last stop of the day was Split Rock. This was a major meeting spot for the Native Americans. From a distance it looks like a big boulder sitting out in the Harper Flat area, which it is.

Upon closer inspection we see that there is significant sign of this being an early man site. Many of the smaller rocks in the immediate area have bedrock mortars, like this one.

Split rock has a number of pictographs on it.

Then, as the sun was going down and the cold winds were picking up in intensity, we started for home. At first we went west, thinking we were getting close to a paved road. The map mentioned a drop off on the road and we soon found out what a drop off means, serious rock crawling from our perspective. We decided to take the safer and longer way out, back the way we came.
Driving out in the dark turned out to be more of an adventure than we had anticipated when Dorothy asked from the back seat how long the gas gage had been on empty. Note the reading in the picture. Roy said he couldn't remember, but last he had checked it had been well over half a tank. We then began to wonder if we had punctured the fuel tank while going over some of the rougher spots on the road. We decided we didn't have much choice, drive until we were out of gas and then shiver together in the car till sun up. Once daylight was upon us we'd start hiking toward the road and hope to catch a ride. It wouldn't bode well for work or domestic bliss, but it was out of our control. Then we hit a big bump and the fuel gage started to register over half a tank again. From then on major bumps sent us back and forth between empty and plenty of fuel. We decided that there was a short, which later turned out to be the case. It seems that going over one of the more significant drops we had scraped the wire from the fuel line and it had broken just enough to cause intermittent contact.

We managed to find our way out in the darkness, of course with a well travelled road that's not too difficult and were able to call home and find out we were in big trouble for being late for dinner. Considering the alternative that we had been contemplating, we were Ok with being late. I'm not sure when the girls are going to want to go exploring again, but time will tell.