Something Good in Badlands

From the Carrizo Badlands Overlook in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, you can peer down at 10 miles of folded and twisted terrain. Although the badlands look impenetrable, there’s a way into the maze of cliffs, caves and winding washes. One way is via Canyon Sin Nombre, below the overlook.

“Canyon Without a Name,” is not the dark and scary place its name might suggest. Its rocky walls--sculpted into a variety of shapes and patterns--are a mosaic of blacks, browns and grays.

The colorful canyon is a great walk; in fact, park interpreters refer to the badlands and the various geological ages represented there as “a walk through time.” Layer upon layer of deposits from ancient lakes and seas have been tilted this way and that.

The sediments making up the badlands have been shaped and sculpted gradually over many years by wind and the scant rain that falls and, more profoundly, by rare flash floods. Only relatively recently in geologic time--within the last 20,000 years--has this land become a desert, scientists say.

Canyon Sin Nombre is open to four-wheel drive travel, as are most of the larger washes and ravines in the Carrizo Badlands. The canyon is not a major route of travel, however. On most weekdays you can expect to meet more two-legged than four-wheeled visitors.

Directions to trail head: Reach the Carrizo Badlands in the southern end of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park by exiting Interstate 8 onto California Highway S2. Drive 12 miles north to the Carrizo Badlands Overlook. Just north of the overlook at mile marker 51.3 on the east side of the road is the signed turnoff for Canyon Sin Nombre. Park in the turnout just off the highway. High-clearance vehicles can proceed three-fourths of a mile down the dirt road and park alongside the road about 200 yards from the entrance to the canyon. It’s sandy, narrow and rugged inside the canyon--strictly for four-wheel drive or walking.

The hike: Walk past some big barrel cactus into the mouth of the canyon. At the canyon entrance are brown and gray sedimentary layers estimated to be 1 to 3 million years old. In some places, once-horizontal sedimentary rocks are now vertical. Some canyon walls show S-shaped layers; the rock has been twisted downward, upward and downward again.

The first two miles of Canyon Sin Nombre are the most interesting. Look for natural bridges and arches, rock formations that resemble castle walls, nests of ravens hidden on high. The Jeep road eventually emerges at Carrizo Creek and links with other four-wheel drive roads.

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Canyon Sin Nombre Trail

WHERE: Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

DISTANCE: 4 miles round trip from mouth of canyon; 5.5 miles round trip from highway S2

TERRAIN: Slot canyon in awesomely eroded badlands.

HIGHLIGHTS: “A walk through geologic time.”

DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: Easy to moderate.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, P.O. Box 299, Borrego Springs, CA 92004; tel. (619) 767-5311.