Borrego Springs: Harper Canyon

Rating	*****
length	9.7 mile - 4 hour 20 minutes (Return trip). Moderate.
Height	880 - 2210 feet
Access	At HWY 78 mp 87.1 turn right (South). Warning: This is a 4x4 road, there may be some patched of deep sand. To the end the road gets rough, filled with rocks, you need more and more clearence.
Other Trails	C
Data	To download these files, right-click the link and choose 'save as' |--| .GPX (GPS file) |-----| .KML (Google Earth file)

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A beautiful canyon hike.

At HWY 78 mp 87.1 turn right (South).
The road is a unmarked park road, only the sign 4x4 recommended indicates this as a park road.

The road is fenced off at both sides and is sandy at the fist part.
Because of the (deep) sand an AWD is recommended and at least a higher clearance car is needed.

Drive about 1.6 mile until the road ends. Turn right on Kane Springs Road and after 300 Yards turn left on the road signed Harper Canyon.

Drive as far as you can, we made it to point "Park 1" but "Park 2" is the actual parking.
Only go past point "Park 1" when you can easily make it past the rocks.
The road deteriorates further on, more and bigger rocks on the road.

But when you are mid February till the end of March, you may want to hike from "Park 1" and look for the blooming Cacti.
This is after all the Cactus garden as signed.
Plenty of Cacti and some where starting to bloom in mid February 2011.

Hike along the road up into Harper Canyon.
The canyon entrance is not that obvious, but follow the footprints when in doubt.

If you didn't see any Ironwood in the park, this is the place to be, a real Ironwood forest.

The canyon is very sandy with rocks. About half way into the canyon, you have to pass some larger boulders.
Look for footprints and find the easy way, don't climb them, find the easy route.

Close to the end the canyon narrows and you have to climb some falls, that are really easy to pass.

Harper Flat is rather uneventful, flat and sandy.
You have to camp to explore it further.









Disclamer: Read this first before you start your hike.
Contact: usa/at/e/f/m/e/r/.eu (leave out the /)
All hikes recorded on pocket loox (pocket PC) using gpsTuner(.com)
Hiking Harper Canyon Borrego Springs Area (Anza-Borrego Desert State Park) California, Hike with gps, gpx and kml (Google Earth).