Anza-Borrego Central: Driving & Hiking: Blair Valley

Photo of an Indian pictograph image of the sun
Blair Valley Pictograph Image of the Sun

Blair Valley attracted the Indians of old and it attracts hikers and campers today, with good reason.

Indian morteros and pictographs can be visited, and so can remnants of more recent history such as Foot and Walker Pass, where stage coach passengers had to get out and walk over the rocks, and the site of the former home of the poet Marshall South and his family on Ghost Mountain.

Blair Valley's altitude contributes to its attractiveness. You are at about 2,400 feet when you turn off of County Road S-2. Five miles to the southeast, at the trailhead for the one-mile walk to the pictographs, the elevation is a mere 3,200 feet.

The California Juniper thrives in this area, as do the Desert Agave and the Mohave Yucca. Up above, in the Vallecito Mountains, the plant community changes from desert to Pinyon-Juniper Woodland.