Winter is a great time to visit our local desert. Hike in the relative cool, and enjoy beautiful starry skies at night. Anza Borrego State Park is one of our largest desert park areas with many hikes to choose from. First stop at the Visitor Center where there are informative exhibits  plus the award-winning 15-minute film, A Year in the Desert.
A desert garden just outside the Visitor Center building provides a quick look at some of the vegetation typical of the 600,000-acre park, with the species identified. The desert garden includes a pupfish pond. Pupfish evolved from conditions during the Ice Age to today's precarious existence of fish in the desert. They are called Salton Sea pupfish, though none are left in the Sea. These pupfish can thrive in fresh water or water nearly as salty as the ocean, and they can survive temperatures from near freezing to as high as 108 degrees Fahrenheit. When the water gets too warm or too cold or nearly dries up, these fish burrow in the mud at the bottom of the pool. There's another pupfish pond near the Palm Canyon Trailhead in Borrego Palm Canyon Campground.
The visitor center is open 7 days a week 9:00am to 5:00pm November through April and on weekends from May through October.