How big is Anza-Borrego Desert State Park?

More than 600,000 acres, or roughly 1,000 square miles. It is the largest state park in California and the third largest in the United States, spanning parts of San Diego, Riverside and Imperial counties.

How much does it cost to enter Anza-Borrego?

Day use is $10 per vehicle, collected at the Visitor Center, developed campgrounds and several popular trailheads including The Slot and Hellhole Canyon. The park has no entrance gates and much of it can be accessed without a fee.

When is wildflower season at Anza-Borrego?

Annual wildflowers can appear from January through mid-April, with peak bloom most often between late February and early April. Timing varies year to year based on rainfall and temperature.

Is Anza-Borrego a Dark Sky Park?

Yes. The park was designated an International Dark Sky Park in 2018 at Silver tier. Borrego Springs, the town at its center, has been an International Dark Sky Community since 2009, the first in California.

Do I need four-wheel drive at Anza-Borrego?

Not for the paved roads, the Visitor Center or the main campgrounds. The vast majority of the park's roughly 500 miles of dirt roads do require a high-clearance four-wheel-drive vehicle.

Is Anza-Borrego Desert State Park open at night?

Yes, the park is open 24 hours a day, year-round. The Visitor Center is open daily 9am to 5pm October through May, and weekends and holidays only June through September.

Introducing Galeria el Patio

By Sally Walsh

Interior designer and art curator Gary Henderson of Studio 628 introduces to Borrego his new gallery, “Galeria el Patio,” across from Studio 628 in El Patio.

Gary sees “Galeria el Patio” as social architecture, a place where artists, collectors and neighbors find one another, bridging the worlds of designing living spaces and fine art, and treating furniture, objects and gallery exhibitions as part of a single cohesive, intersecting vision. Interiors can often double as living galleries.

Gary also brings his distinctive, genuine passion for art, decades of experience working with art and artists, and the complex spatial skill of curating, hanging and presenting a show.

Continuum, Not Reinvention

Gary found a second life in the desert—a personal reinvention without abandoning the Seattle self, a Seattle design firm and a prior Seattle gallery program.

His early career included an apprenticeship with Fort Worth designer Tonny Foy and contact with famous designers Benjamin Baldwin, Ward Bennett and Joe D’Urso, to name a few associations. He served as president of the Northern Pacific Design Association, as a board member, and as a Bellevue College interior design advisor and educator.

His two Borrego galleries are important art destinations.

Borrego Art Community

Borrego has a thriving community of working artists. Our small town has cultivated a distinctive art cultural footprint. Gallery spaces serve as critical platforms for emerging and established artists to gain visibility and for art enthusiasts to encounter new artistic expressions.