Anza-Borrego South: Southern Emigrant Trail

Photo of the old stage coach route up the west side of the desert, taken looking down from Campbell Grade
Looking down on the old stagecoach road
from the Campbell Grade

All you have to do is walk a few yards through terrain that was crossed by stage coaches in the 19th cenutry and you can get an idea of what the drivers and trailblazers went through. You can also imagine how lonely it must have felt to be out there.

People had to make their way through patches of soft desert sand, and harder sand undermined by animal burroughs. They had to deal with tough desert plants, rocks, and frequent ruts. Vallecito Hill, which is now climbed by Campbell Grade and Foot and Walker Pass in Blair Valley were the worst of it.

At first, the few people who crossed the desert followed Anza trail going north at Yuha Well and exiting Anza-Borrego at La Puerta at the head of Coyote Canyon. In 1824, Lt. Santiago Arguello discovered the San Felipe Valley and the route of today's County Road S-2 from Scissors Crossing to Warner's Ranch. To use this exit point from the desert, he changed the Sonora Road (as the route first came to be known) west through the Carrizo Corridor between the Coyote Mountains and the Fish Creek Mountains. As is the case today, when travelers reached Warner's, they could turn north toward San Gabriel, or southwest to San Diego, bypassing the Oriflamme Canyon route.

After the discovery of gold in California and the Gold Rush, the route became known as the Southern Emigrant Trail