Sun and Snow Sabbatical

Canyon sin Nombre & The Mud Caves of Arroyo Tapiado

While planning our adventure and looking for fun trips in Anza Borrego, we stumbled upon vague references to ‘Mud Caves’ way out in the southern part of the park. The only sources of information about the area are the occasional YouTube video, 4x4 enthusiast photos, and one girl and one boy scout troop in San Diego who posted pre-trip info packs that are to die for. The YouTube vids and pics whet our appetite, and the scouts showed us the way!

We have three or four good 4x4 guide books for the area and two of them list the trip. One claims the first part of the trip is very easy. As soon as we turned off Sweeney Pass Road toward Canyon sin Nombre we bounced over large ruts, then bogged through deep soft sand. So much for trail ratings.

Almost immediately we were struck by the incredible beauty of this canyon. The area is heavily faulted, uplifting ancient Colorado River bottom sediment into colorful, twisted cliffs on both sides of the trail. Paint it all with blue, yellow and white wildflowers and clear blue skies. . . Well, you get the idea. Heaven.

We left Canyon sin Nombre and headed north to Arroyo Tapiado where the much anticipated ‘Mud Caves’ loomed. The trail was very easy and anyone with a RAV4 could have made it through the ‘moderate’ sections. Go trail ratings.

We broke out the laptop and read the scouts info, and quickly found a couple of amazing mud caves to explore. I thought these would be smallish caves, but these caves were impressive. Imagine a slot canyon with a roof and rare skylight or two. The cave

twists along for a hundred yards or so before breaking out into a slot canyon, then goes back into being a cave again. Seriously fun stuff. HERE'S A YOUTUBE VIDEO

After the mud caves we tried our hand at a couple of geocaches up Bridge Canyon. One of the caches was actually in the extremely narrow entrance to Dip Slope Cave. Good thing we had kids to send in for it ‘cause I sure wasn’t going to fit in there.

Lisa found lots of fossils in the sediments in this narrow slot canyon. A few of the more open places in the canyon were actually covered in little blue

wildflowers! Well, it was getting late so we had to call it a day. Next time we’ll plan on camping in the arroyo and spending much more time exploring!

Enjoy!