Coyote Mountains Wilderness - Trail Report

The Coyote Mountains are a fish hook shaped mountain range, and they make up 40% of this BLM-managed wilderness area located south of Anza Borrego Desert State Park in Imperial County, California. Part of the Carrizo Badlands lie within the northern portion of the wilderness, their narrow and twisting gullies giving the landscape its austere, forbidding appearance. Motorized vehicles are not permitted within the wilderness boundaries.

A group of unusual sandstone rock formations/wind caves, believed to be six million years old and known to locals as Domelands was our destination on this hike. The area is also extremely rich with marine fossils, including sand dollars. This is the world renown Imperial Formation, and collecting is prohibited. Despite the regulations and remoteness of the area, vandals have done enough damage in past that the area has been declared an "Area of Critical Environmental Concern".

The rare barefoot gecko is known to make its home among the mountain ridges, and the endangered Peninsular Bighorn sheep live here.

The BLM rates this hike as an 8 on a scale of 10 (with 10 being the most strenuous) due to the steepness of the trail and the elevation gain.

The trail starts out by heading into a sandy wash. There are no cairns to mark the trail down here because they would get washed away in a flash flood, but it's fairly easy to navigate one's way through to the mountains. We had the GPS coordinates for the trail, which made it a piece of cake.
<br>
We each carried 3 liters of water and The Essentials. The weight of my camera and 24-70L lens was the most I wanted to carry given the elevation gain we would be making, so Bill volunteered to carry the heavy 70-200L lens. That is one of the toughest decisions I have to make before a hike; I need the wide angle for landscapes and the telephoto for wildlife...but the weight of both, especially since they are L glass, is too much if I have to carry a lot of water. Out here I need to worry more about carrying survival equipment than camera equipment. Good thing Bill doesn't mind helping out and carrying some of the weight for me.
<br>

<br><a href='http://www.licensestream.com/LicenseStream/client/contentDisplay.aspx?cid=12097&fid=12810&l=c'><font color="red">License this Image</font></a>

3 / 34

The trail starts out by heading into a sandy wash. There are no cairns to mark the trail down here because they would get washed away in a flash flood, but it's fairly easy to navigate one's way through to the mountains. We had the GPS coordinates for the trail, which made it a piece of cake.
We each carried 3 liters of water and The Essentials. The weight of my camera and 24-70L lens was the most I wanted to carry given the elevation gain we would be making, so Bill volunteered to carry the heavy 70-200L lens. That is one of the toughest decisions I have to make before a hike; I need the wide angle for landscapes and the telephoto for wildlife...but the weight of both, especially since they are L glass, is too much if I have to carry a lot of water. Out here I need to worry more about carrying survival equipment than camera equipment. Good thing Bill doesn't mind helping out and carrying some of the weight for me.

License this Image

alone backpack BLM Bureau of Land Management California caucasian clouds Coyote Mountains Wilderness desert Hike hiking hiking pole hills male man nature one outdoors path red river wash sand sand dunes shorts solitary Trail trek trekking pole walk walking wild Wilderness