We went over the park map with a volunteer at the Visitor Center today, and I was amazed to discover how much of Anza-Borrego we’ve managed to explore in our five visits (some prior to owning the Airstream).   But one place we’ve never gone to is Coyote Canyon, north of town.

After driving through a couple of miles of grapefruit groves, the paved county road abruptly ends and drops off a foot or so onto a sandy 4WD road.   We bounced along five miles of washboard, sandy ditches, and two water crossings before ending up at Lower Willow, at the beginning of Coyote Canyon.

Here the road is gated from June 1 through August to allow the bighorn sheep to drink from the constantly-flowing river.   Today the gate was open, leading to a short drive up the river and along a rocky jeep trail. There’s another six miles of trail ahead but we turned around here.   It was getting fairly technical.

At its deepest the river was only about a foot deep, so our tires got washed but that’s all.   Still, it’s always a pleasant surprise to find water flowing in the desert, especially in the dry winter.   Further up, we were told later, one ranger got water in her engine at another crossing.

A couple of miles back we stopped at a place called Desert Gardens. There are no gardens here, just an interpretive sign and a couple of picnic tables.   This area and north up the river were the year-round residences of five Indian families.

It seems a desolate spot but in fact everything they needed was here to be found, thanks to the river. We hiked a while and spotted a few things: a big-eared Desert Jackrabbit, some ocotillo with small red blooms, a few insects — things like that — but no tarantulas or bighorn sheep, which are what we were really looking for.