Pictograph & Smuggler's Canyon
Blair Valley, Anza-Borrego Desert SP · near Julian / Shelter Valley · California Desert
Hiking
At a glance
- Difficulty
- moderate
- Route type
- out-and-back
- Distance
- 2.5 miles
- Elevation gain
- 300 ft
- Time needed
- day
- Best season
- Oct–Apr
Permits and booking
- Permit required
- No
- How the permit works
- Free. ~3.7 mi maintained dirt through Blair Valley; passable to careful 2WD when dry, impassably slick when wet.
- How hard the permit is to get
- 0 of 5
What is here
- Features
- Kumeyaay pictographs · Morteros grinding holes nearby · Dry-fall pour-over overlook · Vallecito badlands view
Worth knowing
- Dogs
- Not permitted
- Good for a first timer
- No
Hiking detail
- Intl tip
- Don't touch the rock art (skin oils destroy it), and walk the extra half-mile past the pictographs to the overlook — most people miss the best part.
The guide
A short walk over a low saddle leads to genuine Native American pictographs painted on boulders, then continues to the lip of S…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Pictograph & Smuggler's Canyon — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 33.01965, -116.3598