Well I have been studying Google maps as well as my GPS map software and it looked like it was possible to hike along Carrizo Gorge/Creek trail to the mouth of Goat Canyon . If you have been reading my BLOG you know that Goat Canyon is home of the world famous Goat Canyon Trestle. At two hundred feet tall and 750 feet long, it is one of the tallest, longest wood trestles ever built often described as an engineering marvel or "the impossible railroad".
Previously, when it was somewhat legal, we hiked along the tracks from Dos Cabezas to reach the trestle and in another adventure, Mary Kaiel and I did a 3 hour hike from Mortero Wash to reach the trestle. This time I wanted to try to access it from along the canyon floor. Armed with my new Delorme GPS and steadfast confidence Mary and I jumped in her Toyota Tacoma and drove out to Anza Borrego. We hit some pretty strong winds driving over the Tecate Divide but once we dropped down into Ocotillo the wind settled down.
Pulled off the S2 at Carrizo Creek, put the Tacoma in low range and headed down the trail. The trail heading south through Carrizo Gorge actually goes pretty far in and there are a few somewhat technical 4-wheel sections towards the end. Let me clarify, technical for a stock, non-lifted Tacoma. I don't think the modified jeeps that drove past us had any trouble, but then again they were running 35" tires and we were still using the useless 30" Dunlops that came with the truck..
According to my GPS we were about 3 miles from the mouth of Goat Canyon from where we parked . That distance is a bit misleading in that it is "as the crow flies" and I knew we would be scampering over boulders, squeezing through marsh reeds (carrizo) and trying to avoid the prolific cholla in certain areas. Still Mary and I were game and headed off along the canyon floor.
The trail was pretty obvious in some places and at times would completely disappear. The GPS was very helpful in keeping us on course as were the "ducks" (trail markers). This seldom explored area of Anza Borrego is beautiful and amazingly quiet. We were constantly scouring the surrounding mountains in hope of seeing Bighorn Sheep. No sheep but we did get an impressive view of the Carrizo Gorge railroad high above the canyon floor.
After about an hour and a half of hiking the trail disappeared and we were confronted by a somewhat impenetrable forest. Up to this point we had been collecting scrapes and cholla thorns so the thought of squeezing through yet more vegetation was not that appealing. We opted to turn around this point which was unfortunate since the GPS showed we had 7/10 of a mile to go.
I would love to know if anyone has completed this hike to Goat Canyon so let me know in the comments.
Until next time,
Bob
| Link to Photo Album | (Link To Slideshow) |
Rounded up the crew for an overnight trip to Anza Borrego's RockHouse Canyon.
Great sunny weather but the wind at night proved to be a little much. Casualties were Kaiel's REI tent and a sleepless night for most of the campers.
Coffee and breakfast helped us recover and after breakfast we did a late morning hike up to the RockHouse Canyon linehouse where we were able to check out the fauna.
Seems the wildflowers have reached their peak in this area and are starting to disappear but the cactus blooms are beginning to show.
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| Beavertail blooms in RockHouse Canyon |
HedgeHog Cactus with blooms |
On the way back to the campsite, we were lucky enough to see a flat-tailed horned lizard thanks to eagle-eye Linda. He was camoflauged so well you couldn't even see him with the camera view-finder.
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| Can you spot the flat-tailed horned lizard? |
BJ70 Base Camp |
Another wildlife encounter came in the form of a rattlesnake moving down the jeep trail in Carrizo Gorge. Mark's son Tim was able to snap this picture as the rattler moved away.
More to come....
View the SlideShow or the PhotoAlbum
Since free weekends were disappearing faster than the money in my checking account I decided to take a solo mid-week trip out to Anza Borrego . I had read that the flower season was going to be "peaking" in the first two weeks of March so I was really anxious to check things out.
I left Leucadia around 3:30 PM on Wednesday, topped off the BJ70 with bio-diesel in El Cajon and dropped down into Ocotillo around 5:30PM. Not bad considering the Bj70 with its' 90 hp diesel motor does not like hills and the trek out via Interstate 8 is nothing but hills. Basically the 8 will take you from sea level to 4500' then drop you back down to sea level around the town of Ocotillo..
I ended up camping on Egg Mountain which is near the mouth of the Carrizo Creek / Gorge jeep trail. What's nice about Egg Mountain is that at an elevation of 900' you get a 360' view of the surrounding desert. The area was blanketed with flowers as far as the eye could see. Since it was dusk the lighting was pretty good but I decided I would wait until morning to take flower pictures.
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Ocotillo Bloom at Dusk
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Sunrise at Egg Mountain
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Morning at camp
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The next morning I had barely brewed my first cup of coffee and looked down and saw a scorpion. He was busily heading on a path that would have taken him directly over my foot. I managed to snap a few pictures but he was a bit camera shy and very fast.
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Scorpion that charged my foot
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Desert Dandelions.
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Indian Paintbrush
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After breakfast I drove down Carrizo Gorge trail and parked at the entrance to Rock House Canyon. I was really anxious to try out this new GPS I purchased off Amazon. I set a waypoint at the start of my hike and headed up the wash in the direction of the cattlemen's line house. The flowers were intense. Everywhere you looked the ground was carpeted with colors of yellow, pink or blue. I didn't notice too many flowers on the cholla and other cacti so i am guessing that will happen later.
The hike up to the linehouse took about an hour and was around 2.7 miles according to the GPS.
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Desert Sunflowers frame the linehouse
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Desert Sunflowers
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Hiking mid-week in the Anza Borrego Desert by yourself is interesting. The only sound you hear besides your foot steps are the various creatures going about their routines and birds sounding an alarm that you are approaching.
Using the GPS made all the difference. Although I have hiked this wash before it is really nice to know how far you are from your truck and what direction it is in.
Pics are here
I read about a spot called RockHouse Canyon so I convinced Mary to take a trip out to Anza Borrego to try and find it. Apparently it is accessible off Carrizo Canyon which was perfect since it is one of our favorite areas in the Anza Borrego Desert.
On the way out there were still plenty signs of snow from the storm that came through a few days back. People were actually stopping off the 8 freeway to play in the snow. We had actually planned on stopping in Pine Valley on the way out to get our snow fix but decided a beer Ocotillo's Lazy Lizard was a little more enticing.
| Looking up Carrizo Canyon |
We spent the night on the West side of Carrizo Canyon at a spot I THOUGHT was the RockHouse Canyon trail head. Turns out it wasn't and we ended up having to do a lot of "overlanding" through fields of cholla and ocotillo until we found the correct tributary. Bob vows to work on his math skills and reading his odometer correctly in the future.
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| Sea of Cholla. |
Once we found the correct trail, which is basically a huge wash, the hike was easy. The canyon is beautiful and you find yourself surrounded by rock cliffs as you hike up the sandy trail. The silence is amazing. The only sounds we heard were the occasional planes flying high overhead.
Our goal was to get to the old cattlemen's line shack which we finally did find. The shack is built next to a huge boulder and inside are the remains of a fireplace and a rusted bed. The rotting wood door still works which is amazing. It was pretty cool to sit inside and look out the painless window overlooking the valley. We both also noticed that the temperature inside the tin roof covered house was much cooler.
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| Mary in the Rock House. |
We probably could have spent a few hours exploring the area but with only one bottle of water and no food, we reluctantly headed back down the wash to the FJ Cruiser for lunch. Hike up took us close to two hours while the hike back took us about an hour since we had since figured out the correct trail. 
Link to photo slideshow
Mary and I decided to take a quick overnight trip out to Anza Borrego. I was excited to go because we were finally going to get to 4-wheel the BJ70 which we bought a few months ago. The drive out from San Diego was non-eventful. The BJ70 who we are now calling "Opie", does great on flat stretches of freeway but when you hit hills patience and downshifting become your mantra.
Once we arrived in the lazy, desert town of Ocotillo (I mean lazy in a good way) we decided to stop in for a beer at "The Lazy Lizard". After years of driving by this place it was fun to sit down in the one room bar with some of the Ocotillo locals.
After leaving the Lazy Lizard we pointed the BJ70 towards the north and our camp site in Carrizo Canyon. It was getting dark as we arrived so we quickly setup the tent. No roof top tent this time since the racks would not accommodate the clips of the tent. This was discovered after Mary, Kaiel and I had already hoisted the tent up onto the lifted BJ70...ouch.
The next morning we took a quick run up to Egg Mountain to check out the view. Egg Mountain is around 900' in elevation and offers an excellent view of the Carrizo Creek/Canyon area. Highly recommended!
The next stop was Canyon Sin Nombre. We dropped down into the twisty canyon and spent the morning exploring the mud caves and slot canyons in the area. The area has a prehistoric feel to it and you expect a dinosaur to pop out at any time. As is true with much of Anza Borrego this area was once the northern part of the Gulf of California and was completely underwater.
We are convinced that this coming Spring the Desert will have loads of flowers dues to all the rain we have received in the past few months. There are signs of green grass popping up anywhere. We will cross our fingers. 
You can check our slideshow here.
We woke up early Friday, loaded the rest of the camping stuff into the Tacoma and drove out to Ramona to meet up with Jan and Gina. Hooked up with Michael in his diesel troop carrier and headed to Anza Borrego by way of Julian. 
We arrived at our camp site in the Carrizo Canyon East Fork area and were pleasantly surprised to see it was empty. Everyone helped unload the wood, tables etc in preparation of our big Thansgiving feast.
While the turkey was cooking, Mary and Sarah went for a hike and the rest of the crew opted to hang by the camp. Jan mixed up a great batch of bloody marys and we all sat around enjoying the Desert scenery. Turkey was ready in a few hours despite our numerous times of opening the lid. 
Everything came out great and we even topped off the meal with pumpkin and apple pie.
The next morning we were moving a bit slow but made an excellent camp fire breakfast of eggs, ham and turkey bacon for the crew. After 3 cups of camp fire coffee we fired up the Toyotas and headed over to Egg Mountain to check out the 360' view of the Carrizo Canyon area. Kaiel ran over and checked out the geo-cache that we found a year back and checked out the log book. Seems two more people have found it since the last time we were here which is pretty cool. 
This has turned out to be a great time of year to visit the Desert. While you won't find the wildflower blooms of Spring the weather has always been great.
You can check out the rest of the trip pictures here.
We are in the process of planning our day after Thanksgiving trip out to Anza Borrego.
Open to suggestions but would like to camp Friday in Torote Caynon / Indian Gorge or Carrizo Creek where we will dig the hole and pit roast the turkey.
There is suppose to be a pretty good hike up to Sombrero Peak at the end of Indian Gorge road which would be cool if anyone is up for it.
Saturday we are thinking of checking out Ghost Mountain and the Marshall South homestead site and doing a little wheeling and exploring. Sunday we will make breakfast do some more exploring and then make the trek back to San Diego.
Even though we had our fill of turkey at Holly and Dave's great Thanksgiving feast; Friday evening found us once again feasting on turkey, stuffing, green geans yams and sweet potatoe pie. This time we were out in a hidden canyon in the Carrizo Canyon area. As luck would have it when we first arrived a Jeep Wrangler and an older couple in a Toyota Tacoma were just leaving. I quickly threw the FJ into 4-Low and negotiated up the canyon to secure our spot. I didn't really need 4-Low or probably even 4 wheel drive for that matter but I had to convince Mary once again our need for a 4x4 . 
About an hour after we started setting up camp we heard the unmistakeable sound of two diesel engines coming up the canyon. It was Jan and Gina in their HJ60 affectionately named "Betsy" followed by Andy and Rebecca driving Jan's BJ70. It is not very often in Southern California that you see one diesel LandCruiser let alone 2 at the same time. Pretty cool 
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Once they arrived we quickly set up camp and the eating and drinking began. 
We had an amazing assortment of food including a huge turkey which we BBQ roasted, sweet potatoes and every other type of food you could imagine. Logistically it was amazing that we pulled it off out in the Desert.
The next morning, to walk off the huge meal of the night prior, we trekked further down the trail to do a hike that Mary and I have done before. It runs along the canyon floor which eventually takes you to the Goat Canyon trestle.There were some impressive tall barrel cactus along the way.
Kaiel , being a kid, had to scare his Mom by climbing the vertical collection of rocks half way down the trail, Bob being a kid at heart had to follow him and bloody up his leg in the process.
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Can you say "Flowers"...
We were really having seconds thoughts about this trip. The weather on the coast was pretty bad and the news was talking about flash floods. Driving south on 805 we saw a pretty bad accident involving 6 cars. Another accident on the 8 freeway had us asking ourselves if we should really be out driving around.
Lucky for us once we dropped down into Ocotillo the weather was actually nice with minimal wind.
In Ocotillo we met up with Jan and Gina in their cool BJ70 diesel Land Cruiser and took them out to one of our favorite camping spots in the Carrizo Creek area. 
Once again our "secret" campsite was available so we parked the Cruisers and hiked further up into the side canyon.
Hilights of the hike were Jan playing with this cool brown tarantula
and Kaiel's rock climbing antics.
View Full Photo Journal Here,
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Driving out of "Canyon Sin Nombre" we were lucky to find an intense wildflower field.
The Anza Borrego Desert is alive with color right now.
Group shot in Canyon Sin Nombre
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