Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

The spectacular landscape of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park was established in 1933 as California's first desert state park. The 600,000-acre state park is the largest in the continental United States.

The park's 500 miles of dirt roads, twelve wilderness areas and miles of hiking trails offer vast opportunities for silence and solitude in the Colorado Desert.

Although this park receives only a few inches of rain each year, it contains oases and verdant canyons. Cactus gardens and wildflowers bloom in spring.

Desert-dwelling creatures such as bighorn sheep, roadrunners, cactus wrens, chuckwallas, kangaroo rats and many types of reptiles live at Anza-Borrego.

Campgrounds include 52 with full hook-ups, 92 sites without hook-up, a horse camp and 16 backcountry sites. Open camping is also allowed in most of the park.

Palm Canyon Campground has picnic areas and a walking trail leading to the streamside groves of native fan palms.

Four-wheel-drive vehicle trails wind through beautiful washes lined with palo verde and smoke trees.

Stay on established trails; new tracks take decades for nature to erase.