After hiking Palm Canyon in the Anza Borrego Desert almost every year right after New Years, and skipping 2015 and 2016, today I went again on Jan 1, 2017.

Starting out, on January 3, 2010, I noticed a brand new stand of palm trees developing. I took a picture and marked the spot (click to enlarge):

When I came back two years later on January 7, 2012, here is the identical view:

Then I came back on March 10, 2013. This is what it looked like:

After massive floods in 2013, this is what it looked like on January 1, 2014. I hardly recognized it.

The trees that were formerly where I placed the blue and green arrows are completely gone. The water pulled them out completely and washed them away. There is not a trace of them left. The center grove is still there, but it has hardly grown since last year, and it is severely bent at the root, obviously from the rush of the creek downstream.

Here is the picture I took today:

Of course, I had to take the obligatory selfie in front of the famous oasis, the destination of the hike.

And, as usual, there were some bighorn sheep very near. I even got some short videos of them.

They completely blend into the environment and are very hard to see. You can only see them because they move. I saw an entire herd of about a dozen of them on the hillside; they were so camouflaged, I almost walked right by them.

It made my day. Wild bighorn sheep.