NEJ
11-29-2010, 09:59 AM
For all you fishing people, this is not a fishing trip or a place you would fish. This is a desert wash on the south side of the Fish Creek Mountains in Anza Borrego State Park. You drive south out of Ocotillo Wells on Split Mountain Rd. and then turn off and drive through the split in the mountain. It is a very cool road that exists in the bed of the Fish Creek Wash. It can be sandy, but this trip, the road was drive-able by almost any vehicle. What you drive through at Split Mountain is a fault expression, the Fish Creek Fault. The fault has slipped maybe about 1,000 feet or more horizontally moving rocks on the right as you drive through 1,000' from their counterparts on the left. The forces that do this grind the material in between to the extent that erosion easily can maintain a stream course through a mountain range.
After passing through the mountain, we turned north off the main road into North Fish Creek Wash and camped about a mile-and-a-half up. The road up the North Fork has some very rough patches and it kept the traffic to a very easy one or two trucks or jeeps a day. Other people camp closer to the turn off. You must not drive too far off the road and you need to build a fire in a metal container.
The whole Fish Creek Wash area is known for its fossils of ancient sea life, mostly oysters and cockles. Friday night the temperature dropped to the low 30's and froze the water in the dog dish and the plastic jugs. Saturday morning we took the dogs and went for an extended walk over the mud hills up to the edge of the desert south of the main wash. It is an amazing place with little vegetation and all the gravel is just small broken oyster shells.
We had a great time and ate some good food. Here are the photo’s. The first is our campsite in North Fish Creek Wash, then a Say’s Phoebe sitting on the camper shell lift door; 1/4 lb hot dogs; breakfast of fried eggs on toast, cheese, salami, and jalapenos; Loggerhead Shrike sitting in a smoke tree; oyster shell; some of the landscape we hiked over; and a Queen butterfly feeding at some rubberbush.
NJ
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After passing through the mountain, we turned north off the main road into North Fish Creek Wash and camped about a mile-and-a-half up. The road up the North Fork has some very rough patches and it kept the traffic to a very easy one or two trucks or jeeps a day. Other people camp closer to the turn off. You must not drive too far off the road and you need to build a fire in a metal container.
The whole Fish Creek Wash area is known for its fossils of ancient sea life, mostly oysters and cockles. Friday night the temperature dropped to the low 30's and froze the water in the dog dish and the plastic jugs. Saturday morning we took the dogs and went for an extended walk over the mud hills up to the edge of the desert south of the main wash. It is an amazing place with little vegetation and all the gravel is just small broken oyster shells.
We had a great time and ate some good food. Here are the photo’s. The first is our campsite in North Fish Creek Wash, then a Say’s Phoebe sitting on the camper shell lift door; 1/4 lb hot dogs; breakfast of fried eggs on toast, cheese, salami, and jalapenos; Loggerhead Shrike sitting in a smoke tree; oyster shell; some of the landscape we hiked over; and a Queen butterfly feeding at some rubberbush.
NJ
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