Mud Caves!
The desert is a great place to be in the winter, its warm and sunny and still feels like summer! Being in Anza Borrego for such a long time allowed us to go on all sorts of adventures. We were able to explore an old calcite mine, we saw some wild big horn sheep, and we got to longboard a bunch! Our favorite and most exciting hike in Anza Borrego State Park was exploring the Arroyo Tapiado Mud Caves!
The road to get to the hike branches off of the S-2 a few miles north of Mountain Palm Springs Campground. Once on the dirt road, continue past the intersection of Hollywood and Vine. Eventually, the dirt road will come to an information sign that explains how the mud caves were sculpted and how dangerous they are to enter. Exploring these caves is NOT advised because the walls are made of crumbly dried mud and could collapse at anytime. Experiencing a collapse in any of these caves could be fatal. Even though we explored the area, we do not recommend anyone else to take the risk.
Our Experience at The Mud Caves
We parked near the information sign seen above and immediately started checking out all the branching side canyons off of the main
wash. In these canyons we came upon lots of unique mud formations such as tunnels, arches, and varying sized caves. Some of the branched canyons got very narrow. And some of the arches were low enough to make you duck under.
The walls of the canyon were amazingly delicate and fragile. The walls look almost liquid from the erosion caused by rain. As you can see, the walls, roofs, and structures are very crumbly. Being inside the caverns made me feel as if I were just an ant in a giant sand castle.
This was a very unique hiking adventure with quite a bit of adrenaline factored in. There were many areas and structures that we didn’t want to be in or under for very long! Many times we carefully moved as fast as possible.
The hike itself felt very free, there was no specific path to follow or destination to reach. We just wandered along the main wash for a couple miles exploring the side canyons. It really seems like there are an endless amount of mud caves, canyons, and tunnels to explore. Some of the paths seem more risky than others. If we felt unsafe or if the walls looked like they may crumble at any time we would just go find another route.
Recommended Headlamp
We did not bring any flash lights or head lamps, but those are always good to have when your going into a cave. Buying batteries gets costly and can be a pain in the butt, so our recommendations for a headlamp is something that can recharge. Along with the ability to recharge, size is also important. Having a huge light just hurts your forehead and is cumbersome. We found this headlamp on Amazon and it is our recommendation. It’s small, rechargeable, and affordable.
We continued down the main wash and explored as many canyons as we could until we arrived at largest cave that we encountered. At first this cave just seemed like a shallow crack in the wall, but once inside the mud opened up into a huge cave. The cave was tunnel-like and went further into the mud structure than we first thought.
Some of this cave was wide and open while other parts of this cave were very narrow and small. Some of it had a roof and parts of it were walking under large arches. It felt very risky going so far in but it was hard to resist the adventure. Many times while in the caves we would look up to see holes in the cave and the beautiful blue sky above. Which was beautiful, but scary at the same time. Southern California is know for its earthquakes, and I think experiencing an earthquake in any one of these caverns would be fatal.
After checking out that particular cave, we thought we had tempted fate enough for the day and we headed back to the truck. Another great aspect of this hike was the lack of humans. We didn’t encounter anyone else in the canyon or caves the whole time… except for this cool guy.
Thanks for Reading!
Stay tuned to The Lost Longboarder if you’d like to see more adventures in this area! If you’re interested in reading more about exploring the desert canyons in Anza Borrego, check out our Calcite Mine & Palm Canyon article. Or to see a big hill to longboard in the park check out our Yaqui Pass Hill article.
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