Pinyon Mountain Road

The trailhead is on the east side of the road and is often overgrown with shrubs and thus hard to see. Out in the distance, you can see the trail working its way over the horizon toward Pinyon Mountain.

A medium-sized staging area sits just a few feet into the trail. This is a great place to air down and prepare for your adventure. Pinyon Mountain Road is on the southeast side of the staging area noted by a sign.

North Pinyon Mountain is an out-and-back trail with several small camping areas overlooking the valley.

The beginning of Pinyon Mountain Road is very easy and filled with flora. In these sections, you can see a plethora of Gander's Buckhorn Cholla and Simple Desert Agave,

Filled with Creosote Bush, Agave, and Cholla, you enter Pinyon Mountain Valley with rising rock formations on each side of you.

To the south is a small campsite for two vehicles that are not level but are hard dirt. This camping spot does offer a good view, but there are better choices along this route.

This small camping spot would be okay for two vehicles. The site is comprised of a dirt base and is slightly unlevel. Even though the camping conditions are not ideal, it offers a stunning view of Pinyon Mountain Valley below and is off the beaten trail.

Continue straight at the intersection. The north spur provides a quick trip to a small potential campsite if required. The south spur travels to another small but potential camp with unlevel ground.

One of the better campsites for ambiance is down this spur. Continue driving the main road to complete Pinyon Mountain Road.

One of the two best spots on this trail, this large camping spot can fit up to five vehicles and is surrounded by rocks on its backside and shrubbery on its trail-facing side. The rocky hills around the site make for a moderate windbreak, while the compressed sandy floor makes it ideal for ground camping.

On the north spur, barely 100 yards from the main trail, is a two-vehicle, partially flat dirt camping spot. To the right is a camping spot large enough for five vehicles on dirt but not flat, but Creosote Bush will provide partial privacy. Another camp resides on the south side of the road at Waypoint 11.

The spot is large enough for five vehicles, but only a few vehicles will have good flat dirt ground to camp on. You can see back to the main road from here, and including the campsite on the north side of the road.

Continue straight to stay on the trail. The road on the north travels to a nice little camping spot offering a stunning view of the desert below. Spanish Dagger Yuccas become more prevalent along the trail providing exceptional scenery.

The campsite is within a small-level wash and is large enough for four vehicles. A short hike to the north from the site offers a great sunrise view of all of Anza-Borrego.

The spur to the south leads to a beautiful campsite.

Complete with a Pinyon Pine and Curl-leaf Mountain Mahogany, this site is tucked back in a canyon in the hills on the south side of the main trail and is very private. It is large enough for three to four vehicles, and tent campers will enjoy the very level and soft tent pad towards the back of the site.

"The Squeeze" is one of the trail's most famous obstacles, making for amazing photos and even better stories. Just be warned, if you are in a wide vehicle, you might not make it through without adding a couple of new scratches to the fenders, mirror, or, worse, the roof. This obstacle will either turn you around and send you home, or you will overcome, push through, and complete this trail.

Before starting down this obstacle, it is best to walk it in order to grasp how to best drive it and utilize your spotter.

Will it fit? The issue with this obstacle is the body roll that will push your passenger side roof into the rock and potentially cause much damage. The issue is that the driver's side is higher, creating an off-camber roll to the passenger side. A Wrangler JL barely fits for reference.

Spoiler Alert: Tips on how to do this obstacle.

The best attack plan to overcome the obstacle is to always stay the lowest you can, putting your passenger tire sidewall completely plumb up against the rock side (see photo 2). This will help you stay low and reduce body roll. It is common for people to stack a small line of rocks on the passenger side to minimize roll. If you need to rock stack, remove the stacks when done.

Be wary here as the fork to the east leads to a dead-end over a cliff. Reportedly, people have confused the cliff drop as Heart Attack Hill

The soft sandy road you have driven all the way up to the Squeeze is now gone, and the rock crawling begins.

The next obstacle might be one of the more painful obstacles of the trail if you don't complete it correctly. Back Window Rock is known for being no one's friend that touches it. The rock sticks out just in the right spot on an off-camber tip that leans your back driver window directly into a large boulder causing quite the smash!

Spoiler Alert: Tips on how to do this obstacle.

Best to stay high and wide while moving slowly past this obstacle. A spotter is a helpful friend as they can see the location of your front tires to ensure no extra lean takes place that would wipe your back window.

This roughly 4-foot waterfall will test if you have not adequately aired down due to loss of traction.

Spoiler Alert: Tips on how to do this obstacle.

The trick to this obstacle is to put your driver-side tires on the outcrop of solid granite. You can see in photo 1 the small pile of rocks at the bottom on the left side; this is where you want to approach and keep your driver's tire about 3-4 inches away from the large vertical rock. See photo 3 for an example of distance from the rock. Once your rear end starts to climb, you can turn your wheels to the right and prepare for the next rocks.

Rightly earning its name, Heart Attack Hill is an obstacle to be scared of and will get the heart beating pretty hard. That is because a simple wrong action could lead to a rollover and much worse. Because of this obstacle's intimidation factor, many people have turned around instead of going down what feels like a never-ending drop into hell.

Spoiler Alert: Tips on how to do this obstacle.

The best plan to attack this obstacle is to ensure you are aired down to a low tire pressure you would use for rock crawling, disconnect your front sway bar, and double-check to see if you are in the low range. Once moving, avoid over-applying the brakes in spots where the front end dips, and be ready for rare instances to let the vehicle coast if needed to keep the rear end on the ground. Failure to remove the sway bar has resulted in many vehicles rolling over, so it is highly recommended you do so. The best tactic to complete this hill is to go straight down the hill and avoid any turning or getting sideways. Your vehicle is most stable going straight down the hill.

The trail connects with Fish Creek, you can take that trail out of Split Mountain towards Ocotillo Wells.