TWO HOURS, TWENTY MINUTES, UPHILL ROCK SCRAMBLE

This is a 2 1/4 mile hike and scramble following a trail starting at the edge of Borrego Springs and leading to Maidenhair Falls.  In the early part you gradually climb the desert floor leading to a boulder filled canyon.
The trail steepens as it takes us through blossoming desert.

Now the scrambling starts.  The trail gets harder to see and sometimes we end up following muddy footprints over large granite boulders.

Finally a trickle of water begins to show up between some boulders and then it disappears again.

Now the water is running continually and the next thing you know we find ice.  Yes ice!  Just below a small water fall the spray has frozen on the grass along the stream.  It was 28 degrees last night on the desert where we are parked.  Just  a little further on and we come to another small water fall and we wonder if this is the end of the trail, but no, we find another place to scramble up and there is another flat area that leads us to our destination, Maidenhair Falls, named because of the ferns that grow on the wall beside the falls.  We have our lunch in a sunny spot and head back down.

Going down is faster, but not necessarily easier.  Lots of places we had to slide.  I think what made it faster was that the trail was easier to spot from the top looking down.