Calcite Mine Hike

One of the things we're starting to do as a museum is have hikes on Mondays. Anyone who wants to come is welcome. I can't go on all of them because I am not an 'extreme' hiker and Neal, Jessica and a few of the others here really enjoy extreme Death-by-hiking type of hikes. They also tend to enjoy hiking to higher altitudes than I can manage.  But Sunday Jessica, Jacob and I joined the Natural History Museum Hike, from San Diego, which met in Borrego Springs and drove out to the Calcite Mine in Anzo Borrego Desert State Park. It was advertised as an 'intermediate' hike and good for kids and the elderly so I figured I had a shot at being able to do it.

Stratified rock formations at top of Calcite Mine

The Calcite Mine was used during World War II to quarry calcite and calcium sulfite for the war effort (i.e. making bombs). Today it's an amazing hike if you want to see rock formations and canyons formed over millions of years by wind erosion and the Colorado River, which occasionally would overflow its banks and flood the area, shaping canyons in the same way it shaped the Grand Canyon.

It was a 4 mile roundtrip hike, and we're not sure the altitude past 1,000 feet, but there were places where it was much higher. I only had trouble with the altitude when we got to the Calcite Mine itself, which I'm guessing was over 1,500 and maybe closer to 2,000 feet above sea level.  There were some really amazing formations, like Slot Canyon, which is a small canyon of smooth rocks barely big enough in some places for a person to fit through, and smooth enough in places that it is almost impossible to climb up.  I was proud of myself for only needing help climbing up in one spot.

Slot Canyon

There were some great places where you could see the stratification of the rocks, and you could see veins of quartz and calcite. None photographed well, so you'll have to take my word on that.  We stopped for lunch at the highest part of the Calcite Mine, which is the only spot I had real trouble.  Very little wildlife showed itself, although I have no doubt coyotes, bobcats, ring-tailed cats, jackrabbits, and others are around when people are gone. We saw evidence of rabbits and deer hoof prints.  Which was exciting because that morning Jessica and I were up at the museum looking at where our cacti were being eaten and found prints that were bigger than deer. So we maintain we have big horned sheep eating the cacti.  Which would be cool if we could ever see them in person.  On the hike up we saw a baby horned lizard, which is apparently becoming a rare siting.

Baby horned lizard, trying to blend in, with a comparison penny

 And I figured out how to use my camera for movie images.  Which could be cool in the future as I figure our what I'm doing.