Hik­er’s cairn in Ella Wash. Click pho­to to enlarge

Coach­whip Canyon is pos­si­bly named for the fastest snake around these parts, the coach­whip. A coach­whip, when sens­ing dan­ger, wastes no time flee­ing into the pro­tec­tion of the brush or the rocky walls of a Bor­rego canyon. Like the coach­whip snake, so it is with Coach­whip Canyon, itself a twist­ing retreat into hun­dreds of trib­u­taries carved by wind and the flash floods of the thun­der­storm sea­son.  At around 1,000′ ele­va­tion, Coach­whip is sit­u­at­ed in the south foothills of the San­ta Rosa Moun­tains, which rise quick­ly anoth­er 5,000′ to crest more or less at the com­mon bound­ary of San Diego and River­side counties.

(Ed. note:  This page is under new con­struc­tion.  We’re dis­play­ing dif­fer­ent types of gallery plu­g­ins to see which ones we like the best.  Please accept our apolo­gies for any inconvenience—8–05-2020)

Desert laven­der

For col­or, there is much greater oppor­tu­ni­ty in spring­time, after the win­ter rain, pro­vid­ed there is rain. In wet years, wild­flow­ers abound in all of the lit­tle trib­u­tary wash­es. The vibrant pink sand ver­be­na is most seen along the canyon edges, while the shrub­by laven­der, brit­tle­bush and cre­osote take up spaces in the sea­son­al streambed, just off the beat­en road.  Span­ish nee­dle, aster, and lupine bor­der the nat­ur­al foot trails in the bot­toms of the less­er tributaries.

Span­ish needle

The canyon could also be named for the coach­whip plant, more often called the ocotil­lo. Ocotil­lo is not entire­ly unknown here, but of course it’s very com­mon through­out the Bor­rego val­ley to the west.  In fact, we are almost clear of the val­ley here, with some­what less than a mile to go east­er­ly to the high­way pass from which a clear view of the Salton Sea may be seen.  At near­ly a 1,000 foot ele­va­tion, just into the San­ta Rosa Moun­tain foothills but still ris­ing from the ancient bot­tom of an ocean mil­lions of years ago, the geo­log­i­cal vari­a­tions in this area are greater real­ized the more time you spend here.  In Cal­i­for­ni­a’s ear­ly days, when the Bor­rego area was heav­i­ly prospect­ed for min­er­als and sur­veyed for agri­cul­tur­al (and even rail­road) uses, Coach­whip and its neigh­bor­ing for­ma­tions were known as “Cal­i­for­ni­a’s Paint­ed Desert.” The attri­bu­tion prob­a­bly did­n’t hurt the admis­sion of the area into the cur­rent-day state park.

Prim­i­tive camp­ing in the canyon is high­ly acces­si­ble by vehi­cle, with many places offer­ing refuge from the west­er­lies (which may blow away tents, shake the RV con­sid­er­ably or oth­er­wise coat the bar-be-cue chick­en with sand).  Some­what expect­ed is a less­er bird­ing expe­ri­ence; nat­ur­al food resources are sparse, yet on one per­son­al vis­it a fair num­ber of white pel­i­cans were seen fly­ing a few hun­dred feet above the cliffs!  (These came from the Salton Sea, not far from here.)  Coach­whip’s cliffs and hills by moon­light are espe­cial­ly where it’s at–for the most aus­tere of moments–for in those illu­mi­nat­ed moments one is ful­ly con­nect­ed with the same oppor­tu­ni­ty to feel this won­der­ful land as did Bor­re­go’s ear­ly cow­boys and, far ear­li­er, native peoples.

Click for Ella Wash route

Coach­whip Canyon is accessed via a wash, known as Ella Wash, that cross­es Coun­ty Road S22. If you see the access road to Arroyo Sal­i­da Camp­ground on the south side of the Bor­rego-Salton Sea­way (Coun­ty Road S22), you are very near the entrance road to the canyon, but it is a few feet to the west of the road to the arroyo and on the north side of the Sea­way (what a great name for a stretch of desert high­way!) Lat­i­tude and Lon­gi­tude of the entry point are:  33°17’01.55″ N and 116°09’12.77″ W.

Smoke tree at sunset.

Four-wheel dri­ve is rec­om­mend­ed for the sandy route along Ella Wash, named after the wife of Jack Calvert, who was super­in­ten­dent of the Anza-Bor­rego State Park until 1952.  Ella’s name­sake bears to the left at the first seri­ous fork after about a half mile of norther­ly progress, via a series of broad curves alter­nat­ing left and right.  The canyon walls nar­row con­sid­er­ably in places, and  the pro­ject­ing boul­ders in the soft roadbed seem not so soft if the chas­sis of the vehi­cle should hit them; a high clear­ance will great­ly help.  Ella Wash con­tin­ues from the afore­men­tioned fork for upwards of a gen­tle mile into the ever-inter­est­ing canyon, where final­ly the trek must become a hik­er’s expe­ri­ence (even for jeep­ers).  A sec­ond fork just past Ella Wash (again, stay left) is a more direct dri­ving expe­ri­ence before reach­ing a ver­ti­cal wall on your right and a bot­tle­neck, at least for larg­er vehi­cles, a few min­utes up the tributary.

Hum­ming­bird nest­ing. Click pho­to to enlarge

The canyon can be haven to pho­tog­ra­phers who have dis­cov­ered its reflec­tive prop­er­ties in the moon­light.  Check out the images locat­ed in the right side­bar, which may be opened in the brows­er as indi­vid­ual pho­tos.  There is a man­u­al slideshow of the same images below. 

For a Google Earth view­port, and more pho­tos from Coach­whip Canyon, please click on the “2” numer­al of the pages link below to go to Page 2.

Next:  Coachwhip Canyon Daytime Photography (manual slideshow)

Click on any of the pho­tos from Coach­whip Canyon day­time series in the mosa­ic below to enter the slide series. Pho­tos by Bar­bara Swan­son.  NextGen gallery plugin.

Next: Coachwhip Canyon Night Photography (manual slideshow)

Click on any of the pho­tos from Coach­whip Canyon night­time series in the mosa­ic below to enter the slide series. Pho­tos by Bar­bara Swan­son. Envi­ra gal­ley plu­g­in.