DESERT JEWEL LITTLE-KNOWN ANZA BORREGO IS A PLACE TO GET AWAY FROM IT ALL - IN COMFORT, IF YOU WISH.

Byline: Eric Noland Travel Editor

BORREGO SPRINGS - Urban life - even suburban life - can close in on you sometimes. Particularly in winter. Patience wears thin in the face of lawn mowers and car alarms, nosy neighbors and manic drivers . . even the street lamp that seems to have been aimed directly at your window.

At such times, the desert can serve as a welcome antidote. But not just any desert. A well-kept secret lies directly east of San Diego, tucked between Mount Palomar and the Salton Sea, reaching south nearly to the Mexican border.

It is Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. It's a big one - at about 940 square miles, one of the largest state parks in the country.

And it's wild. This protected desert region offers serenity that can't be found amid the developmental sprawl of Palm Springs or the blinding light and commotion of Las Vegas. Anza-Borrego is otherworldly canyons, bighorn sheep, off-road trails, brilliant night skies and wildflowers - the region is currently in the midst of its annual bloom, although the lingering La Nina drought is expected to mute it some.

In spite of all this, Anza-Borrego is not the sole province of hardy travelers, those who don't balk at brushing sand from a frying pan or plucking cactus quills from the sidewalls of tires.

Smack in the middle of the park is an island of private and municipal land, on which sits the sleepy burg of Borrego Springs. ``It's truly unique,'' said Brian Cahill, spokesman for the state park. ``With most parks, you find (support services) in a gateway community on the edge of the park. Here it's right in the middle - a hole in the doughnut, so to speak.''

Here are stores and homes and what seems to be dozens of tiny Mexican restaurants . . . plus one of the most comfortable resorts you're going to find anywhere.

La Casa del Zorro spreads out over 38 acres on the southeastern edge of town. The proprietors are obviously keenly aware of their proximity to the vast, urban expanses of Los Angeles and San Diego - and realize that city folk make the trek to this remote desert area (about a three-hour drive from downtown Los Angeles) precisely because they've been driven wiggy by confined quarters.

In 1960, the Copley publishing family bought the Desert Lodge, changed the name to the current one and began making offers on the tiny desert homes that adjoined the property, purchasing them over a period of years as they came onto the market. But instead of gobbling up that open land for a sprawling hotel, the homes were renovated and the distances between each maintained.

Now the boutique resort features 19 ``casitas'' among its 77 rooms. They are free-standing units averaging 1,300 square feet, and most are tucked away in remote corners of the property. About a dozen were renovated recently and have private pools or spas to complement such welcoming touches as wood-burning fireplaces, open-beam ceilings, glazed- tile floors and hacienda furniture.

They are one- to four-bedroom units, and all come equipped with peace and quiet. With your resort neighbors at a discreet distance, the urban kinks seem to melt away over a book by a crackling fire, a room-service breakfast on the patio or a cool drink in a deck lounger by the pool. Windows and patios were designed to maximize rugged views of desert and the nearby Vallecito and Santa Rosa mountain ranges. That state-park wilderness is close, too; early one morning, a member of our group heard the distinctive yips of coyotes a short distance off.

The casitas might be a bit of a splurge - on weekends during the winter peak (through April 30), they range upward from $295 for a one-bedroom unit, $550 for a two-bedroom - but the latter represents an intriguing option for two couples seeking to vacation together (and, of course, defray the cost). The two- and three-bedroom units have a bathroom for each bedroom, so privacy is maximal.

The rooms in the main building may not be able to match this degree of privacy, but they are no less comfortable. One of La Casa del Zorro's most popular lodging categories, according to front-desk staffers, is the deluxe room, which features a fireplace - at the foot of the bed - plus a vaulted ceiling, sitting area and either a balcony or patio ($275 on weekends in winter, $210 in late spring).

The resort is positioning itself as quite the desert oasis. It currently has 14 bodies of water for swimming and relaxing, including the private casita pools and spas, and has plans to add six more casita pools this year, according to resort executive Jay Patterson. Two of the common pools are designated for family use, but only adults are permitted into a complex that features a 25-yard lap pool (complete with lane lines), a 2,111-square-foot aerobics pool and a cloverleaf-shaped Jacuzzi that appeared capable of seating 30 - if you can endure the extreme warmth; the thermostat was set at 103.5 degrees.

There are so many pool complexes at this resort that when our group of four called to see if room service could deliver a bottle of wine to the Jacuzzi (it could), the server said over the phone, ``Describe what it looks like where you are.''

In such a setting, it would be tempting to lounge away each day without ever getting a speck of sand on the hiking boots, but to do so would be to deprive Anza-Borrego of its due.

On an off-road camping trip here a few years ago, our group explored a network of sandy roads in the Pinyon Mountains and a region ominously named Earthquake Valley, pitching our tents in a knife-edge canyon only to escape merciless night winds.

Similarly, you may be itching to see if the headlight brush guards on your new four-wheel-drive beast are effective against something more treacherous than the overgrown landscaping at Nordstrom, but you're still haunted by images of being stuck up to both axles in Tarantula Wash, nearly four miles from the nearest paved road.

An alternative is leaving the driving to another. We did on this visit and wound up with a fascinating and sometimes harrowing introduction to some of Anza-Borrego's more hidden charms.

Paul Ford is a transplanted San Diegan who gained a desert-rat fascination with this park 10 years ago. Now, under the moniker Borrego Paul, he runs Desert Jeep Tours, introducing visitors to some of the more intriguing, out-of-the-way features of this vast park.

We opted for the three-hour ``Desert Combo'' ($69 per person), the most popular of his four tours. We knew what we were in for within the first few minutes of the ride, when he careened through a desert landscape and ultimately came to a stop on the edge of a steep canyon. Boulders had been positioned along the rim - usually an indication that vehicles are expected to stop here. Ford squeezed between two of them . . . and over we went, plunging toward the canyon bottom on perhaps a 50-degree grade.

``Most first-timers panic and slam on the brakes right away,'' said Ford, whose foot seemed to have no intention of getting anywhere near the brake. ``That's the worst thing you can do, because then you lose control.''

Soon, we were creeping up a canyon barely wide enough for his 11-year- old Jeep Cherokee (affectionately called Dusty). Then the passage could no longer accommodate the Jeep - or, barely, us.

It is the aptly named Slot Canyon, a narrow gash formed by storm water racing through soft sandstone. We left the Jeep and began to wander deep into it, at times having to turn sideways to fit our shoulders through. Over time, mud from high above had oozed into this dark canyon and run down its walls, creating the appearance of candle-wax drippings. ``I love what sandstone and water do,'' Ford said later as we drove out the mouth of the canyon. ``Mother Nature is the best artist.''

The tour held many other delights. We were shown an abandoned mine shaft - a head-high tunnel hacked perhaps 20 yards into the side of a mountain, through what appeared to be solid granite. The ground outside was littered with rose quartz, indicating the prospect of gold nearby, but it's difficult to know if this hole was the least bit lucrative for the laborers who carved it 100 or more years ago.

Later, we made our way to Military Wash, where American forces practiced aerial strafing at the start of World War II.

Fred Jee, a supervising ranger for the park, noted later that the area was first scraped clean, after which stones were laid out in circles to form targets. He said there are also rumors that a short rail line was constructed so the pilots could fire at a moving target. ``This was 1942, '43,'' Jee said. ``These were young kids right off the farm, and they needed a lot of practice - how to come in at the right angle and be effective with the firing.''

That much is evident at a ruined concrete observation post that overlooks the wash. It is pockmarked with numerous wayward shots.

The target area is also rich in remnants from a prehistoric era. Crisscrossing it on foot, we spotted hundreds of spent, rusted machine-gun slugs . . . mixed in with large chunks of petrified wood. We located bits of shrapnel . . . in among globs of amber - petrified tree sap.

To the southeast is the Carrizo Impact Area, a section of the park that is expressly off-limits to visitors. Pilots practiced bombing runs here, and the ground remains laden with unexploded ordnance. ``It was 1,000-pounders on down, plus rockets of all sizes,'' Jee said. ``The geology of that area is soft, like a big catcher's mitt. The bombs went into the ground 10 to 20 feet. They're stable while they're in the ground, but rainfall washes everything away and they start growing out of the ground. It's sort of like having your own bomb garden.''

Next on our tour was a ride through an area called the Borrego Badlands, whose name undoubtedly derives from the fact that nothing seems to grow over this expanse of parched, desolate bumps. Well, appearances can be deceiving. We found a Borrego aster displaying a bright blossom - in early February, probably one of the first wildflowers of the season - and an ocotillo in bloom.

Eventually, we rode to a ridge-top overlook, Vista del Malpais, and surveyed the Badlands as they swept off to the south, including one area appropriately named Hills of the Moon.

On the way back to the paved road, as we tore along Thimble Trail, Ford seemed to take great delight in twice getting air as we bounced over the crests of hills. ``I can make this anywhere from an A- to an E-ticket, depending on what people can handle,'' he said devilishly.

The next day, we were perfectly content to undertake further exploration at a much gentler pace - we walked. One of the most popular hikes in Anza-Borrego is the Palm Canyon Trail, accessed via paved road just a few miles from the Visitor Center. The three-mile round-trip walk is popular not only for its convenience but for its rewards.

Within a mile, we were peering through binoculars at a Peninsular bighorn sheep munching at the undergrowth high up on a craggy slope. There are only about 300 of the creatures living in this desert region today, down from the estimated 40,000 that roamed here when settlers began traipsing through in the early 1800s. This one, which blended with its surroundings so well that spotting it was a considerable challenge, seemed wholly unconcerned with the stream of hikers on the canyon floor about a mile away. Nor did it flinch when a sleek, gray fighter from nearby Lemoore Naval Air Station suddenly roared past overhead.

At the end of the trail is a bizarre sight - a bright gash of green, incongruous against the grays and dark reds of the desert canyon. It is a cluster of fan palms, one of about 150 such groves that exists in the Southwest. This is a big one, about 1,000 trees, making it one of the largest oases in the United States. A stream pouring out of the San Ysidro Mountains feeds it.

After our hike, it was time to leave Anza-Borrego, but any reluctance to depart was tempered by the spectacular views from the steep climb up S22. Then came - imagination willing - an immersion in history, as the road connected with S2 and Highway 79 to roughly follow a route that served the earliest visitors to this area.

Juan Bautista de Anza twice tramped through here in the 1770s, one of the expeditions culminating in his exploration of San Francisco Bay. More than 100 years later, it was the route of the Butterfield Overland Mail, a torturous stagecoach passage that connected St. Louis with San Francisco on a circuitous sweep through the Southwest - 24 days, 2,812 miles one way.

According to H.H. Bancroft's ``History of California,'' de Anza's second expedition numbered 235 people, including soldiers, their wives and children, most of whom intended to settle in California. (Eight babies were born on the trek from northern Mexico.) They wended their way north through San Gorgonio Pass and were thrilled, according to Bancroft, to reach the Spanish toehold of civilization that was San Gabriel.

On the return trip from our desert retreat, as we began to encounter such urban harbingers as green freeway signs and the beacons of fast-food logos, we were considerably less enthused.

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE: Borrego Springs, which lies in the northern center of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, is 154 miles from downtown Los Angeles. At least three hours should be allowed for the drive. Take any of several routes east (10, 60, 91), follow I-15 south to Temecula, then work your way east and south on Highways 79, S2 and S22 to Borrego Springs.

ACTIVITIES: The state park offers several interpretative programs, including naturalist's talks, guided hikes, nature walks and campfire programs. Information can be obtained at the Visitor Center, which is built into a desert hillside in the northwest corner of the park (just off S22 as you approach Borrego Springs from the west). Information: [phone]. Just outside the Visitor Center is a desert garden, offering samples of native plants. Throughout the state park, a $5 daily fee ($4 for seniors) is charged to visitors who leave the paved roads or park at trailheads, etc. Self-pay stations are located throughout the park. Borrego Springs has four public golf courses.

TOURS: Desert Jeep Tours offers four different guided trips into the desert, ranging from two to three hours and starting at $59 per person. Customized tours can also be arranged. Information and reservations: [phone]. Web: www.desertjeeptours.com.

LODGING: On the outskirts of Borrego Springs, La Casa del Zorro offers resort accommodations from $295 for weekend dates during the winter peak season (through April 30). Midweek rates start at $225. Free-standing casitas start at $295 weekends during the winter peak. The resort has 14 pools and spas on its property, plus six lighted tennis courts. Information and reservations: [phone] or [phone]. Web: www.lacasadelzorro.com. Other options include Borrego Springs Resort Hotel, [phone], and Palm Canyon Resort, [phone]. The state park is one of few nationally to allow open camping but requires a $5 nightly permit. There are also a number of established campgrounds in the park, some with hookups. Nightly fees range from $9 to $21 in peak season. Reservations: [phone].

DINING: La Casa del Zorro offers fine dining - and requires jacket and shirt with collar for men. There are some intriguing items on the menu, including a salad that features roasted chevre and spiced pecans and pistachios. Most of the main courses are in the $25-$29 range. This close to the Pacific Ocean, there are fresh-fish items on the menu, and servers wisely ask you how you'd like them prepared (giving you the option of rare ahi, for example). A horseradish-crusted salmon was excellent on a Sunday night, disappointing - more soggy than crusted - one night later. Also on Monday night, a medallion of beef tenderloin ordered medium-rare arrived medium well. Service is earnest, but be alert when ordering wine: It's not unusual to select a '94 red and have a '96 delivered to the table. The dinner pickings are pretty slim elsewhere in Borrego Springs, although ``Best places: San Diego'' (Sasquatch Books, $18.95), recommends the Krazy Coyote Saloon and Grille at the Palms at Indian Head resort (closed Monday and Tuesday). Reservations: [phone]. For lunch, Alicia's in Borrego Springs served up hearty Mexican items in a deli setting.

INFORMATION: State Park headquarters in Anza-Borrego can be reached at [phone], the Visitor Center at [phone]. The park's Web site, www.anzaborrego.statepark.org, includes regular updates on the annual wildflower bloom. Wildflower hotline: [phone]. The Borrego Springs Chamber of Commerce can be reached at [phone]. Web: www.borregosprings.org.

CAPTION(S):

6 photos, box, map

Photo:

(1 -- color) The Vista del Malpais overlook in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park provides a sense of the vastness of the region's Badlands. The park sprawls over nearly 1,000 square miles east of San Diego.

(2 -- 3 -- color) Life is easy - and secluded - in free-standing casitas, above, at La Casa del Zorro, a 38-acre resort on the edge of Borrego Springs. In the wilds of the state park, Paul Ford, right, picks his way through claustrophobia-inducing Slot Canyon on one of the tours he leads.

(4 -- color) no caption (Wildflowers)

(5) The Palm Canyon Trail is popular with hikers at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. It winds through a rocky landscape that is prime habitat for bighorn sheep.

(6) Deluxe rooms at La Casa del Zorro feature a fireplace at the foot of the bed, a sitting area, a vaulted ceiling and either a balcony or patio.

Eric Noland/Travel Editor

Box: IF YOU GO (See text)

Map: Borrego Springs, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park