Coyote Canyon — Anza's Road

This is where the pavement ends and Coyote Canyon begins, climbing away to the north into the mountains. It looks like a road to nowhere. It is, in fact, one of the most important roads in the history of California. Two hundred and fifty years ago, a Spanish captain named Juan Bautista de Anza led a column of colonists straight up this canyon, because Coyote Creek, somewhere up in those folds of rock, was the one reliable water in a desert that killed for less. This was the only overland gate to early California, and it ran right through here. Look up-canyon and hold that picture. Now, the honest part again: beyond this point you need four-wheel-drive and high clearance, and much of the year the canyon is shut to let the bighorn raise their young in peace, so this is as far as we drive. Turn the car around when you're ready. But before you do, stay put and let Ranger Boone walk you up that canyon the way it happened, in the winter of seventeen seventy-five.