Sunday, November 21, 2010

Anza Borrego with SCCX - Fish Creek & Sandstone Canyon

I lead a trip to Fish Creek and Sandstone Canyon with the So Cal Club Xterra on Saturday. It was stormy - windy and raining in San Diego, but beautiful in the desert. Real dramatic skies, and a full moon at the end of the day. 


A few of us caravanned out from San Diego together, with a stop in Santa Ysabel to pick up some freshly baked apple pies. Here's the view looking down at Borrego Springs from the overlook spot on the Montezuma Grade.




It rained almost the whole drive out there, and was still sprinkling and really windy at the overlook.






We gathered at the State Park Visitor Center, then headed over to the trail head at the end of Split Mountain Road, with a brief stop along the way to check out the steel sabretooth cat and horse sculptures on Borrego Springs Road. There were 9 of us at this point, and 2 more would join later.




We stopped to air down our tires at the start of Fish Creek Wash, and a fisheye lens seemed so appropriate.




We made a stops along the way in Fish Creek to check out the scenery, stretch our legs and visit. We had people in the group that I have known for years, and several new people as well.




We found our usual lunch spot about 1/4 mile up Sandstone Canyon, and afterwards drove the last mile of so of the canyon, then turned about and came back out the same way.






On our way back to the trailhead, as the sun was setting.




We split up when we got to the trailhead, with part of the group heading north across the desert to do another trail, and the rest heading home for the day. After everyone had left I found a couple of spots to try some photos of the rising full moon before heading home.








As I was driving home along County Road S-2 I saw something I never seen before - or even heard of. I saw what appeared to be a rainbow, even though it was almost an hour and a half after sunset, and was quite dark. There was a full moon of course, but it was cloudy and raining where I was. You could see the full arch of the rainbow, to my eyes at night it lacked color, appearing a light grayish white. I pulled over, set up my tripod (glad my Pentax dSLR is weatherproof, at least the body) and tried a couple of shots. The files straight from the camera were dark, but with a bit of lightening I got this. The red glare on the right is from the taillights of the Xterra and probably some raindrops on the lens. You can just make out the roadway in the foreground.




Click here to see more images from Saturday, November 20, in Anza Borrego Desert State Park.
   

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