4 min
Overview
Recently, while I was leading a hike with our friends, the Anza Borrego Foundation, I heard a lady refer to the desert as “miles of kitty litter and stabby plants.” She meant this in jest, as she had clearly driven many miles to follow me around and drink donated beer from Ballast Point in said kitty litter. But if one looks at the desert from a superficial and casual perspective, the endless miles of beige with wicked looking devil sticks and stabby demon plants do little to dispel this notion. As desert loves know, however, the desert does a masterful job of disguising itself to the uninitiated while it hides some magnificent secrets tucked within hidden canyons and grottos, and, in this case, a mountaintop. Whale Peak is one of the most popular and highly visited mountaintops in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. At 5,335′, the peak sits much higher than the endless bajadas below. With this relatively lofty elevation comes two things not commonly seen in the Colorado Desert: woodlands and snow. Along with being one of the high points of the region, Whale Peak supports an expansive woodland of pinyon pines and California juniper, which is frequently interspersed with a mixture of chaparral plants, cholla cactus, and a variety of other plants more commonly found in the Mojave Desert at locales like Joshua Tree National Park. Pines and snow in the desert This kind of botanical island is a relatively rare find in the Colorado Desert, which is more commonly referred to as the “Low Desert” owing to its lower elevation and therefore hotter and drier climate. This region of desert generally ranges between below sea level and 1,000′, with some of the area peaks rising up another thousand or so feet. Whale Peak is one of a several notable exceptions to the Low Desert stereotype, as it contradicts much of what you would expect from the region. Furthermore, a visit to Whale Peak offers a good lesson in certain ecological factors responsible for its differences, including adiabatic cooling, slope effect, the rain shadow eff
Trail Stats
14.7 km
518 m
1632 m
1052 m
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