Slot Canyon in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

Janine has updated our website with new photos of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California from our travels last winter.  Anza-Borrego definitely isn’t the most popular of destinations, but we sure enjoy spending time there, especially in the winter!

It is interesting, the three places that I have the most in depth coverage of include Anza-Borrego, Kenai Fjords National Park, and the Chugach National Forest are all fairly unknown, with relatively few visitors.  I bet the combined annual visitation numbers of all three parks doesn’t total the number of people who visit a moderately popular Lower 48 Park like Bryce in just an average summer month.

The businessman in me says I should be concentrating on more popular destinations, but we decided long ago that maximizing personal satisfaction was far more important then maximizing profits.  I suppose if maximizing profits was the goal, I wouldn’t choose to be an outdoor photographer.

Dry Lake Bed, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

I have been a long time user of Singh-Ray filters, particularly their graduated neutral density filters.  So I must say I was honored when they approached me recently and asked me to contribute to their blog.  In fact, I already had the first post written in my head, as  it was a tip I thought I would post here.  Instead, I shared my discovery of the usefulness of using live-view in the positioning of graduated neutral density filters.  Well I don’t want to spoil the whole post, you can check out the whole story at the Singh-Ray blog. 

As far as my own blog goes, I still may do some fine tuning of the header, photo size etc., so if things look a bit funky from time to time, you will understand.

A park in Borrego Springs, California.

It seems a bit strange to be inside adjusting sunny warm looking desert photos from our last trip –  then taking a break to shovel snow out of the driveway.  At least the cross-country skiing has been awesome!

Here are more Borrego photos.

A closeup of a Dune Evening Primrose, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

When it comes to macro close-ups of flowers, I’m no Michael Brown, but it is still a lot of fun – one could get lost for hours experimenting with the different lines, colors and textures found in just a single flower.  Add to that, the different combinations of focal length and depth of field and the composition possibilities are nearly endless.  I tend to prefer the broad landscapes, but it is kind of fun to enter the little macro world found at your feet.

Desert Sand Verbena, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

This was captured at sunset last night.

To follow up on my Anza-Borrego wildflower forecast post from yesterday – the more I hike around, the more convinced I am that it will be an excellent wildflower year here.  I found numerous desert lily plants and big patches of lupine plants both of which should be blooming within the next few weeks.

Desert Sand Verbena, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

Well between Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego and Vancouver – our last month has involved a lot of city photography.  The final couple of weeks of this trip will be based in Las Vegas – with all this city time, we had to make a few days and return to our favorite quiet little desert location;  Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

This did give us a good chance to see how the wildflowers are progressing, and to share my finding here.  In a word, it is shaping up to be a very good year for wildflowers!  I guess that is more then a word, but you get the idea.  If I had to pick one word, with due respect to Tony the Tiger, I would say they are going to be great!

We spent a month here last year beginning just about now, and it turned out to be a pretty good year.  This year, most places are much greener then even last year, and as you can see by the above photo from this morning, there are areas already beginning to bloom.  But don’t take my word for it, according to the Borrego Sun, naturalist Paul Johnson is predicting this years bloom to be better then last with the peak hitting around the end of the month of February.  In addition, the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park website is predicting a “good to excellent bloom in the near future”.

We arrived here on Sunday just in time for another inch of rain – this most recent storm should help extend the season.  We have commitments in Vegas, but I gotta admit, it is going to be really tough to not be here for this years peak.  I may have to grab my tent and sneak back over here for a night!

The above photo was captured with a 100 mm macro lens.  I added a 25 mm extension tube which allowed me to focus and move even closer to the small flowers.  I then parked my truck in such a way to shade the flowers, and used a gold reflector to add a touch of warm light – not unlike what you might find at sunrise, although this was a couple hours after first light.

Anza-Borrego Slot Canyon, California.

To continue on yesterday’s post on the Kiboko Bag - this was our final destination.  This slot canyon is off of Butte Pass Road in the central portion of the park, and is listed in most visitor guides.  It may not have the rich reds of a Utah or Arizona slot canyon, but it still has interesting geographic formations, and wonderful indirect reflected light.

A self portrait of me in a slot canyon sporting my Kiboko camera bag by Gura Gear, Anza-Borrego State Park, California.

I have been using this new bag since the beginning of this trip.  I wanted to give it a complete workout in many conditions before I commented on it, but I can’t wait any longer because I love this bag!  It rocks!  I never thought I would be excited about a camera bag, but I am.

For the last 12 years or so, I have been using a Lowepro Photo Trekker Classic.  I have no complaints with the company – in fact when my zippers wore out after 5 years of constant use, they offered to replace them at a very reasonable cost.  Then to my surprise, they sent me a brand new bag for the same price, now that is service!

The company is great, but I have been frustrated with the bag for awhile now, particularly by the very poor harness system that I think has contributed to my shoulder problems.  When Andy Biggs announced the formation of Gura Gear and the creation of the Kiboko Bag, I was very interested.  You see Andy is a world class photographer who frequently leads tours to Africa – I knew he would understand the needs of the traveling photographer.  So now that I have flown and hiked with the bag, here is what I love about it:

•  It is much, much lighter then my old bag, by a number of pounds!  This is huge.  I was actually considering picking up a Canon 5D II because of the weight savings it offered, but here I actually freed up far more weight.  I’m still amazed every time I grab the thing as to how much lighter it is.

•  The harness system is much more comfortable.  the shoulder straps have better support, and the belt actually transfers much of the weight to your hips like a backpack should.

•  It is larger and can carry more gear including a 600.  I have never had a bag that a 600 would actually fit in, this is going to be a big plus.

•  Despite  its extra capacity, it is still domestic airline carry-on legal.

•  The straps and belt system tuck away into their own pocket and out of sight.  This drove me nuts with my old bag – I would board a plane and put the thing in the overhead and constantly had to deal with dangling strap and buckles.  Seemed like those things were always catching on things.

•  It has two heavy duty handles, one on top, and another perfectly placed on one side – these make it a breeze for loading into an airplane overhead compartment, or into the back of a vehicle, because you are now able to hold the thing securely with both hands.

•   It comes with its own rain coat.  This will come in handy back home during the summer on the Alaska coast.

•   The buckles don’t squeak.  This drove me crazy with the Lowepro, and from on-line searches, I’m not the only one.  I never did find a solution short of holding my hands on the offending buckles.  This thing doesn’t make any unnecessary noise.

•   It has a tripod holder.  Before, I was stuck carrying my tripod in my hand with my old bag, this is another big plus!

•   It also has a side water bottle holder.  I used to put a water bottle on its side in my old bag, and unfortunately it would occasionally leak.  Now it sits outside the bag, in an upright position.

•   The inside is completly customizable, and it comes with more dividers then I will ever need.

I must say, there is a bit of a transition phase to having a new bag – with my old one, I could have been blindfolded and still find what I was looking for – that is one reason I never wanted to change.  Once I get a system in place, and use it longer, the same will be true for the Kiboko Bag.  This brings me to the one thing that my jury is still out on for me, and that is the butter fly opening.  Basically, you open one side or the other, there are two flaps  with the hinge for each flap running down the middle.  As I’m still learning where I placed things, I find myself having to open one side, then the other.  I think given time, this won’t be an issue.

American Kestrel

I think this is a beautiful falcon.  He has been hunting around our campsite in Borrego at least once a day since we arrived here.  Friday, I was finally able to photograph him!  I noticed he often returned to this specific cactus, so Friday I set up on it and waited.  It worked!  I also have some full frame closeups, but kind of prefer this version which shows more cactus.

I have seen these guys in Denali on numerous occasions, but have been unable to get close enough for a descent image.  It is fun to watch a bird like this up close.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Californian desert!

It was pretty amazing to see snow down this low into Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.  There was snow on the ground, and branches broken off the trees at the Tamarisk Grove Campground, just a bit over 1,500 feet above sea-level!  It was beautiful!

We tried to drive up to Julian to get photos of this popular tourist destination in snow, but the CHP had the road closed.  If they closed roads in Alaska every time a foot of snow feel on the ground, we wouldn’t get much done.  I was a bit frustrated at first, but then after seeing people (at least some) driving like maniacs, in vehicles totally unprepared for snow - I realized that it was a good thing the state government made decisions for people down here, otherwise it would be chaos!  We will try to get to Jullian again tomorrow – I would like to get there before the snow melts off the trees.

For those familiar with this area, this was a mile or two up the Plum Canyon Trail.

Snow on the mountains rising above Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

Between a multi hour road closure leaving Seward, below zero temperatures in Alaska, snow and ice in Seattle, and almost an inch of rain in Palm Springs – our travels were interesting, but all in all, went very smoothly.

It seems strange to see palm trees and snow in the mountains surrounding the desert, and it sounds like much more is in store for this area tomorrow.

Font’s Point, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

We have been working our way through the adjusting, key-wording and finally adding our photos from our last trip to our website.  We just updated our section of Anza-Borrego photos from our time spent there this spring.

We now have a lot of coverage of this beautiful desert, too bad few people outside of Southern California have heard of the place.  Heck, I come across people in So Cal who haven’t heard of it – but then again, the relatively low visitors numbers is one of the things I like about the place.

This plant seems to have many names and uses.  Some call it Thorn-Apple, or Sacred Datura, or even Jimson Weed.  The entire plant is poisonous, but portions of the plant are used in modern pharmaceuticals for things like motion sickness medication and to counteract muscle spasms.  Not surprisingly, Native Americans were also aware of the many medicinal benefits of this plant. 

It is about the only thing blooming in Anza-Borrego right now, this plant will bloom most the summer.  We should be back in Alaska Saturday night, it will be a little while before flowers begin blooming there.

I used my truck to shade the flower from the bright, harsh sun light.  Below is the same flower in the direct sun for comparison – I think you can see the advantage of the shade.   

Actually this is a jackrabbit, so maybe I should have titled this Silly Wack-wabbit.

Seems like at the end of a trip we start evaluating our travel plans and methods.  Our trips outside Alaska to the Lower 48 have typically been fairly long trips for a couple of reasons.  For one, the airfare is usually the most expensive part of any trip.  In addition, we often need to spend the night between our flight day and the drive to and from Anchorage, so this means most trips take almost two days on each end of travel, especially in the winter.  Not to mention the stress of traveling with over 200 pounds of cloths and expensive computers and camera equipment.   So it has always made sense to take fewer, longer trips.

In the past, when we traveled in our small camper, or slept in a rental car, 6 weeks was about typically our longest trip.  Yep – I spent 6 weeks sleeping in a rental car – for some reason Janine didn’t want to go on that one!

As our business has grown, it has become more difficult to keep up with business while on the road with our little camper – you may have remember this old post.  Seemed like a good part of each day was spent in an Internet cafe taking care of business.  So this past year we upgraded to a trailer, and this has made working on the road much easier.  We try to find a campground with wifi, and use that as a home base. 

So using a trailer has allowed us to take a little longer trips – our travels last Spring and Autumn were both two months in length.  This trip went almost 2 and a half months which was maybe a week too long, we think two months was probably the ideal length.  That might in part have to do with the fact the desert wildflowers are now gone and it is getting hot down here – and I’m hearing reports of Golden Plovers and Varied Thrush arriving back home!

These cool elephant looking animals are actually metal sculptures of gomphotherium.  These guys actually used to roam in the Anza-Borrego area 3.7 million yeas ago - the gomphotherium, not the sculptures.   

There will eventually be at least a half dozen prehistoric animal sculptures around Borrego Springs.  These Ricardo Breceda sculptures are being paid for by Dennis Avery (like in Avery Labels) and are being placed in different parts of Galletta Meadows.  There are large tracks of land around the town of Borrego Springs with the signs identifying them as Galletta Meadows.  As I understand it, these large tracks of land were also purchased by Dennis Avery, and set aside as public accessible open areas. 

I’ve been told that Mr. Avery lives part-time in Borrego Springs and has been a long time benefactor of the area.  I think it is awesome for someone like him to give back so much to an area like this.  I know if I ever need labels that I will be buying Avery Labels.

Borrego Palm Canyon, Anza-Borrego.

This was from a beautiful Monday morning – it was completely calm!  Nice treat after the weekend storm that ironically originated in Alaska.

We had a great month in Anza-Borrego, it was fascinating watching the transformation of the desert as the wildflowers bloomed.  We were very fortunate to visit during one of Borrego’s famous wildflower years. 

Right now we are in Tucson, Arizona for a couple of days to take care of some business, then we are spending a month outside of Phoenix, Arizona for more photography.

Brittlebush wildflowers in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.

This was from a couple of hours ago.  It may not be obvious in this small size, but that is fresh snow on the tops of the mountains!  Hard to believe, but just a few days ago, it was in the upper 80’s!

Here you can see additional photos of Anza Borrego Desert State Park.

I really like this small, colorful ground flower that is very thick in some areas of Anza-Borrego.  For this photo, I placed an extension tube on my 17-35 lens.  I set the lens at 17mm and f/22 and then laid my camera amongst the flowers and started firing away.  It was fun to see what I was getting – I would check images on the back of the camera, and try again.  The extension tube allows for very close focus.  The flowers in focus are less than an inch away.

This was from a couple of days ago.  Unfortunately, hard winds have made the last couple of days unproductive for photography, I feel bad for all the people who came out here to see the amazing bloom.

Update:  It is actually raining fairly steady Saturday evening.  Few things in life smell as good as a fresh rain in the desert!

Desert wildflowers in Coyote Canyon, Anza Borrego. 

It is pretty cool that the Desert Sand Verbena and Dune Evening Primrose grow together, they are a perfect combination.

For more:  Anza-Borrego Desert State Park photos.