Anza-Borrego Desert State Park California

Font's Point - The Borrego Badlands

Overview | Visitor Center | Points of Interest | Where to Stay | Maps and Weather | Videos


Fonts Points

If you're looking for a great place to hike in the Anza Borrego Desert State Park, consider heading to the Fonts Points. The park offers four different points, each with an excellent view of the desert landscape. The four-mile trail is not marked but consists mostly of hard-packed sand and tire tracks. At a fork in the trail, it narrows and then continues straight. From here, you'll see the view point.

The Badlands is a region of rugged, arid geography with sunken mesas and corrugated hills of dry mud. The Fonts Point area is one of the best places in North America to view these sedimentary layers. Visit Fonts Point early in the morning or late in the day to avoid the heat of the day. If you are in a 4WD vehicle, you may be able to enjoy the view at either sunrise or sunset.

Fonts Points  is a beautiful and remote area in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. It's well worth the trek to see the amazing views of the desert landscape.

View from Font's Point

Fonts Point, you must drive a few miles east of Borrego Springs or Christmas Circle along County Road S22

Font's Point view from road


 

On clear nights, you can view the Milky Way from Font Point. Fonts Point is also a popular spot for stargazing, which makes it a great place to plan your camping trip.

When you're planning a stargazing trip, it's important to check the weather forecast before going. It's important to note that clouds can obscure your view and ruin your experience. Use the Accu-Weather app to get the latest forecasts for your trip. You can also check the sky calendar published by the Borrego Dark Sky Coalition. The Perseid meteor shower is a good time to visit.

Centered in the arid Borrego Badlands due east of the Visitors Center between County Road S-22 and Route 78, four million years of geologic and paleontologic history are exhibited across a stark desert landscape. Conglomerates, sandstones, claystones and mudstones, compressed and hardened, chronicle a variety of landscapes, fossil life forms and climates that no longer exist at Anza-Borrego.

 

Borrego Badlands Region - map

Juan Baustista de Anza, a Spanish explorer, passed Font's Point more than 200 years ago. He led a group of men, women, and mules northwards to Monterey in California. He followed San Felipe Wash through the desert, and Father Pedro Font served as official diarist, chaplain, and observer during Anza's expeditions in 1775-76. Font called this vantage point in the Borrego Badlands, later named after him, the "sweepings" of the earth.

Font's Point is the ideal place to see sediments from the Pliocene or Pleistocene Epochs. The visitor must use their imagination to imagine a landscape without cacti and Ocotillo. Anza-Borrego, which was situated south of the border during the Pliocene Epoch (1.6-5million years ago), served as a basin for the ancestral Colorado River and carved the Grand Canyon. 

The Salton Sea is located to the east of the sloped land. It occupies the lowest part of the geologically young Salton Trough. This portion was formed by faulting which is separating Baja and mainland Mexico. The Anza-Borrego Desert is to the west. To its east, the granitic San Ysidro Mountains rises above it. Clark's Dry Lake contrasts to the smaller Coyote Mountain, and the 8,000-foot Santa Rosa Mountains.

The area was covered by delta-marine waters from the northern Gulf of California. As the river crossed the ocean, organic deposits were layered by flood plain deposits, shallow ponds, lakebogs, and lake bogs. These sedimentary layers, which are stacked on top of each other, contain some of the most remarkable land mammals to ever live.

The Colorado River is now moving east. It has left behind beaches, reefs, horses and cheetahs as well as ground sloths, cheetahs and bears. Many of these animals are now extinct.

All that is left are arid rocky terrain, sunken mesas, and corrugated hills made of dry mud. Through wind, rain, and many generations of flash flooding, erosion softens contour lines. Side canyons and dry washes can be found on thousands of acres of sedimentary rocks. This will allow for endless adventures.


Click on links below to watch video on -

  • Borrego Badlands - This spectacular area, with its arid rocky geography, sunken mesas and corrugated hills of dry mud, is called the Badlands of Anza Borrego. See the Pumpkin patch.
  • Mud Caves Carrizo Badlands- The Mud Caves are found along the walls of Arroyo Tapiado canyon. One of the most extensive mud cave systems in the world, they contain approximately 22 known caves and 9 slot canyons.  
  • Bighorn Sheep - Watch a Desert Bighorn grazing on grasses on a rocky hillside, then gamboling up the hill. Great shots of this beautiful animal against the skies of Anza Borrego.
  • Ocotillo Wells SVRA - Join DesertUSA as we take a look at what draws so many people to this location - almost 2 million people in 2007! See also the Gas Domes' mud pots and the Pumpkin Patch

More on the Borrego Badlands 17 palms, 5 palms and the Pumpkin Patch

 

 Anza /Visitor Center Area | Blair Valley Area | Borrego Badlands Area
Bow Willow Area
 | Fish Creek Area  | Santa Rosa Area | Tamarisk Grove Area
Things to Do in the park.


Anza Borrego Desert Introductory Package

 


 

 

 

Share this page on Facebook:


DesertUSA Newsletter -- We send articles on hiking, camping and places to explore, as well as animals, wildflower reports, plant information and much more. Sign up below or read more about the DesertUSA newsletter here. (It's Free.)

The Desert Environment
The North American Deserts
Desert Geological Terms

SEARCH THIS SITE
FREE DESERTUSA NEWSLETTER

Enter Email:


Shop desert store

 

Catnip



 

Rockhound books


Hot temperatures in the desertAre you interested in the temperatures in the desert?

Click here to see current desert temperatures!



 
 
 
Copyright © 1996- DesertUSA.com and Digital West Media, Inc. - -