Anza Borrego Desert State Park

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is situated in San Diego County, California. Some parts of it even stretch out into Imperial County and Riverside County. With 500 miles of dirt roads, a dozen wilderness areas and 110 miles of hiking trails Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is the largest state park in the whole state of California.

All in all, the park is 600.000 acres big. It got its name by the Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza and the Spanish word borrego, which means bighorn sheep. This is because in the State Park you can sometimes see these really rare bighorn sheep. They are endangered because the humans expelled them out of their living space. Anza-Borrego Desert State Park gives these animals some space back. Besides, the California Fan Palm is grown in the park, which is also a rare plant. Additionally, there are of course other things to see: next to washes, different kinds of wildflowers, cacti, roadrunners, golden eagles, mule deer, chuckwallas and rattlesnakes you can also experience the wonderful nature of California Desert. Visitors cannot only see various kinds of rare animals and plants, but also a landscape which is very different in the single parts of the park. On the one hand, you can see the desert where there is mainly sand, on the other hand, visitors have a great view on the Santa Rosa Mountains with a valley below. The mountains somehow enclose the valley. In the high mountains there are no paths or roads, just nature and wilderness.

The beauty and variety of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park will inspire everyone coming there.
How great the landscape in the State Park is shows that some of the scenes of the movie ‘Serenity’ were filmed there.
People who are also interested in learning something and not only watching can get listening devices at the visitor center. On top of that, the visitor center includes exhibits with a lot of information added and a short film lasting 16 minutes about the park.

In front of the visitor center there is a desert garden which gives the visitors a quick overview of the vegetation in the desert. Besides, it incloses a pond with pupfish. This is very intereting because these pupfish developed during the Ice Age and are really flexible concerning water temperature and the amount of salt in the water. They can stand freezing, but also very hot temperatures and survive in both fresh and salty water.

As a result, Anza-Borrgeo Desert State Park is an ideal place to visit, no matter if you are really interested in nature or only a little – you will be captured by the extra-ordinary landscape and rare animals and plants. Because of this a visit to the State Park is worth its money and time.