The Windy Desert

I went out to the Anza Borrego desert this last weekend to do some hiking and check out the new tent I got for Whitney. Overall the trip was not particularly satisfactory except for a really excellent hike.

I got out there at about 9pm on Friday night because I couldn't pull my shit together enough to get packed up before I left for work Friday morning. It was pretty crowded at Agua Caliente campground. Lots of little kids were running around and screaming. It was more cute than annoying. I sat around and ate my dinner and then got to setting up the tent. It was pretty warm and seemed likely to be a bit windy so I left the rainfly off so it wouldn't flap around in the rain. This tiny tent is a bit bigger and higher than my old tiny tent, so there was definitely some flapping going on even without the fly. It's a nice size, maybe a little heavy. I like being able to sit up in it and it has a little gear nook that clips onto the inside top.

It was nice to be able to see all the stars. The wind got pretty bad that night. It wasn't just windy. You could hear the wind coming down from somewhere, whoooshhhhh and then it would hit the tent flappa flappa flappa, over and over all night long. I didn't sleep very well. The next morning while I was making my coffee the tent got blown over. NTS, bring rebar to the desert next time.

I went out for my big hike over around Bow Willow campground. I am totally camping there next time. It's a "primitive" campground but it has a composting toilet and non-potable water. Most of the sites have a big wooden shade built and it's not so crowded. Really nice. the hike was also very nice. I started out over at another campground that really was primitive and hiked through some beautiful palm groves. Then I headed generally towards where Bow Willow campground is. I couldn't find a trail so I just kinda made my own. After some minor bouldering I ended up on the desert floor not to far away from my goal. I found a trail and headed into the campground. I eventually found the trail that probably goes to Sombrero mountain and was about to head off when I realized that I had consumed more than half of my 3 liter water supply. It was also noonish, so I decided to head back, this time on the very nice trail back to the palm trees. I finished off the last of my water about 1/2 mile before I got back to my car, so that was a good call.

What was a gentle breeze over at Bow Willow was a heavy wind back at my campground. I made the best of it for the rest of the day, but when I realized that I was eating dinner in my car because I didn't want to be out there in the crazy wind so I probably wasn't going to want to try to sleep in it again. It was so much worse than it was on Friday. I threw all my gear in the car and headed home. That beautiful hike made up for most of the windy badness.