
Starting up Borrego Palm Canyon. It's a nice trail, which crosses the watercourse a couple of times.

Borrego Palms ahead. A short detour leads to the palms, closed indefinitely due to the 2020 fire. Keeping to the north side of Borrego Palm Canyon continues around the palms without walking through the oasis.

Borrego Palm Canyon mellows out shortly after some boulder-hopping, now with just occasional obstacles.

You can see our ridge ascent in the center that we plan to take for our traverse.

Gorgeous scenery.

The flowing water was really nice.


Pretty scenery in Borrego Palm Canyon.

More palms farther up within Borrego Palm Canyon.

Our ascent ridge seen ahead, center.

First, we refilled our water. It was already quite hot.

View back down toward the palms where we filled water, now ascending our chosen ridgeline.

Starting up the south ridge of Peak 4445.

Some rockiness along the crest, a break from the cacti.

View back down into the canyon. Indianhead seen top left.

A narrower portion of the ridge, Peak 4445 up there somewhere on the right.

Lumpy terrain up the ridgeline.

Another shot back down the ridgeline, Indianhead left.

Peak 4445 seen ahead.

Nearing the summit, a final shot back.

Peak 4445 ahead, Palm Mesa High Point center.

Some cool cliffs along the summit ridge.

Peak 4445 summit, view toward Palm Mesa High Point.

View back toward Peak 4445.

Slope up to Palm Mesa High Point.

Palm Mesa High Point just ahead.

A really long, cool-looking dike seen left.

View back toward Peak 4445.

View toward Toro Peak (center).

Onward to Peak 4824, the lump in the center. Cody Benchmark seen top center, and Pike Benchmark top right.

Descending into the tributary of Borrego Palm Canyon below.

Ascending this gorgeous canyon.

Lots of colors and slickrock.

View back toward Palm Mesa High Point.

Narrows within the canyon.



One of a few scrambles. The toughest ones can be bypassed by leaving the canyon.

Exiting the canyon to head up to Peak 4824 via its north ridge.

Brushy, but not too bad.

Peak 4824 ahead.

Summit of Peak 4824, view down into Borrego Palm Canyon (right) and Palm Mesa High Point (left).

Onward to Cody Benchmark (far left). Our ridge descent later into Indian Canyon begins far right in this photo.

Code and Pike.

Cody Benchmark ahead.

View back toward Peak 4824.

Brushy and rocky up Cody Benchmark.

View back at our progress. Indianhead seen far right.

It's a bit like this for the second half.

Summit of Cody Benchmark, view down into Borrego Palm Canyon.

View toward Hot Springs Mountain.

Onward to Pike Benchmark. We took the brushy gully seen center.

Down the brushy gully.

Heading up Pike Benchmark. Our brushy gully descent seen center.

Most of the ascent to Pike Benchmark.


View back toward Cody Benchmark, San Ysidro Mountains behind it.

A large cluster of boulders toward the summit.

Avoidable moves if you wrap around.

Just below the summit, a view back. Cody Benchmark seen far left.

Pike Benchmark ahead.

Chris on the summit block. This is the true high point.

Toro Peak left, Rabbit Peak right.

Pike Benchmark, the benchmark, not the summit. Our descent ridge seen on the left, heading down into Indian Canyon, also seen left.

Descending from Pike Benchmark on steep terrain.

View back up toward our descent from Pike Benchmark (top right).

Wonderful view on the way down the ridge.

Down the standard ridge, heading north.

Progress down this ridge.

Approaching the base of the ridge, entering Indian Canyon.

View back within Indian Canyon.

Brushy and not fun.

View back as we navigate the brush.

We located the Indian Canyon Trail.

Gorgeous views as we descend the trail.

Indian Canyon Trailhead.

What used to be the road, now washed away.

Along the Sheep Canyon Trail for about a mile.

Very poor Coyote Canyon Bypass Road.

Paralleling Coyote Creek.

Back at the trailhead, a locked gate.
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