I spent some time at Anza Borrego Desert State Park yesterday. Let me tell you, there is no easy way to get to Anza Borrego! The roads that connect Borrego Springs to the coast and population centers are mountain roads as steep and twisty as any I have ever driven. The type where a moment’s inattention spells disaster. On the plus side, they are well maintained and as safe as it is humanly possible to make them, given the terrain.

That said, Anza Borrego Desert itself is certainly worth the trip. I was hoping for early wildflowers. Anza Borrego Desert is justly famous for its spring wildflower show, and this year, given rains and snows at about the right time, looks to be a good one. I knew I was really several weeks early, and that turned out to be exactly the case. Hummingbird Bush and Desert Lavender were the most obvious plants in bloom, and I did find a few Ocotillo pushing out their flower spikes at higher elevations in Borrego Palm Canyon…and was really about it…oh…and there was a Century Plant in bloom at the Visitor Center. You will see some flower shots as the week goes on.

The highlight of yesterday’s trip, though, had to the the Desert Bighorn Sheep. I decided, despite the dearth of wildflowers, to make the hike up Borrego Palm Canyon to the Palm Oasis. There was some mention of Desert Bighorn Sheep in the canyon, and I was hoping, of course, to see some. About half way up I spotted a lone sentinel sheep on the skyline of the canyon…way up and way wee…and I would have been happy with that. However, on the way back down, just were the Alternative Trail branches off (if you have ever been up the canyon), I saw a couple studying something in the stream bed with binoculars. They waved me on to were they were. There were two Desert Bighorn Sheep feeding and drinking along the stream not 40 feet away. Now that was a treat. But that is just the beginning.

Knowing no better, I decided to take the Alternative Trail back to the car (the alternative trail is to trails what the roads from the coast are to roads…it climbed and followed the contours of the mountain around the head of every gully feeding the stream below). However, for the first half mile it also follows the ridge the Desert Bighorns use to travel down to the stream to drink. The two sheep from the stream headed up the ridge at the same time I did and paralleled my course for 20 minutes, never more that 40 feet away, and often less then 30. Twice sheep came bounding down the ridge, passing within 20 feet of me at speed. And then, while taking yet another shot of the sheep from the stream, that you-are-being-watched feeling came over me and I turned to find a Desert Bighorn standing on a bolder right behind me, no more than 15 feet away, and just high enough to make for the classic Desert Bighorn on a boulder shot. I had to dial the zoom back to 300mm equivalent to fame the animal against the slopes behind. I took about every kind of shot you could take, from 24mm wide to intimate telephoto.

And the sheep stayed there while I walked on up the trail, which came around on the other side of the bolder.

Canon SX50HS at various zoom equivalents. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity and sharpness.