Anza-Borrego South: Driving & Hiking

Photo of the wreckage of a sport utility vehicle by a desert road. The vehicle has been overturned and burned and stripped of its parts. It sits rusting in the sun.
Always Drive Carefully on Desert Roads

For the best places for quiet hiking in Anza-Borrego South, look to the mountains. For the best places for wide-open driving, look to the flat areas.

For a passenger-car drive through the area, make a circle tour with County Road S-2. and either the Sunrise Highway (County Road S-1) in the Laguna Mountains, or Highway 86 in Imperial County at El Centro.

For hiking, stops in or near the Tierra Blanca Mountains to know about are Vallecito County Park, Agua Caliente County Park, Indian Gorge-Indian Valley, Mountain Palm Springs, Bow Willow, and Sombrero Peak.

People with highway legal 4-wheel drive vehicles enjoy drives off of County Road S-2 such as Palm Spring, Canyon sin Nombre, Jojoba Wash (through the Volcanic Hills), and Mortero Wash (to Indian Hill and the route of the San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway). If you aren't highway legal, you should know about the Off Highway Vehicle Open Area at Plaster City.

In Imperial County, stops to know about include Fossil Canyon, Painted Gorge, and the Yuha Desert. You can approach these places with a passenger car, but be sure to stop before the sand becomes too soft.

Even with a 4-wheel drive vehicle, you should not head into this country without maps and a sense of where the closest highways are, water, and a plan for extricating your vehicle from the sand or mud if you should get stuck. [Note: After a rain, it can get very muddy near the creeks.]

Anza-Borrego South: Driving & Hiking

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