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ANZA-BORREGO SOUTH : ROADS Table Mountain
Table mountain from the East
At elevations nearing 4,000 feet, the Table Mountain area can offer cool
breezes in contrast to desert heat on good days and strong winds and even
thundershowers on stormy days.
Off-roaders like the up and down jeep trails in the area, a combination of
Bureau of Land Management Land and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park land. Hikers
enjoy the freedom of departing from the jeep trails, and the liberty of exploring
wildflowers (many of them uncommon or unusual, but seasonally, of course),
old mining claims, canyons, and the pegmatite dikes and rocks of the Jacumba
Mountains, often places where off-road vehicles can't be taken. Since an earthquake
fault runs through the area, there are many springs, known only to animals
and birds. The birding and animal tracking here are grand.
The soil of Table Mountain is volcanic. Compare the nearby Volcanic Hills
off of County Road S-2 (the Imperial Highway). The rest of the area belongs
to the Jacumba Mountains which were formed when the Pacific Plate beneath
the earth slid over the top of the North American Plate. Rain and wind have
washed away much of the surface soil, leaving the remarkable rocks that you
see.
Through history, the Kumeyaay Indians, who have inhabited the area perhaps
for as long as 2,000 years, had a special reverence for the rocks. In the
American period, which began in the 1840s, there was a need for communication
between San Diego and points east. At first it was easy enough for messengers
and mule trains to take trails through the rocks of the mountains but, as
transportation by stage coach, wagon, and the automobile became an issue,
the need for wider roads developed, leading to pathways such as Old Highway
80, State Route 94, and Interstate-8, that circled around the Table Mountain
area, leaving it a place of relative peace.
The first big problem may be in knowing how to get there.
People could cross the Jacumba Mountains on foot,
but doing so in a stagecoach was usually impossible
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