On the way to Carizzo Gorge
At the Border in Jacumba Sunday, March 06, 2022
Princess drove us to the border in Jacumba. We got as close as you can to the big stupid "wall" and walked up to meet Princess by the highway gas station. It's a 3 mile road walk out of town. Not much in Jacumba. There are a few little buildings on the main street, including a small market. The resort looked kind of forlorn and was not open. We stayed the previous night in a motel a few miles away. We had a cup of coffee, said our good-byes, and off we went along the highway frontage road, which was dirt. You cross under the highway after about a mile and then walk along the other side on a sketchy hillside for a bit. It took a while for us to figure out a good route north/northwest as there was quite a bit of dense brush...all with thorns! Finally, we did find a spot that was more open and we headed cross-country in the general direction of Carizzo Gorge. The surrounding hills have strange boulders or rocks (see photo). Beautiful sunny day, started out a bit cool (32 degrees) but it warmed up and was quite pleasant. We did manage to find a bit of shade for lunch and proceeded on to find a way down into the gorge once we got about 7 miles in. We soon found a way down that looked do-able and not too steep. The railroad trestles were visible on the other side of the gorge high on the wall of the mountain.There were scores of people on the tracks: runners, a bicyclist, walkers and some backpackers...and it's technically illegal to be there. ZIg-zagging down, we finally got to the bottom, where we found two good pools of water. We did fill our bottles - never pass up water in the desert! The entrance to Carizzo Gorge was horrendous: totally choked with dense vegetation, prickly and almost impassable. We tried to find a way through on the sides to avoid as much of the horrid tangle, trying not too successfully to find any game trails higher up. It was a tough and frustrating afternoon...we made hardly any progress, doing less than a mile in three hours! At that rate, we worried about our progress and discussed what to do. Finally, we simply found a good camp site with room for one tent. And, we decided to try for the railroad tracks in the morning. That way, we could have a good surface to walk on and make some miles. Good views of the gorge from up there too. The wall opposite where we camped looked steep but climbable and it looked as though we could attain the flat part of the tracks. We could hear water trickling in the weeds all night, though the creek was not visible to the eye. Exhausted, we fell asleep almost immediately.
Lemstar
Abandoned railroad tunnels
Hiking the rails and dropping back into Carizzo Gorge Monday, March 07, 2022
We got an early start. I was a bit worried about climbing that steep hillside and also simply crossing over to the other side of the gorge! It took us 45 minutes just to get to the other side...but we did find water. Up, up we went carefully picking our way up the steep, rocky slope. We had to traverse over pass a bouldery section to get from the trestle part to the part of the tracks that was flat. We were thrilled when we stepped up onto flat ground on the tracks. I cooked us a hot drink to celebrate. Now, we could actually make some progress. A couple of runners passed us and they seemed to know the area well and told us that we should be able to get back into the gorge further on. Yeti's legs though were beginning to bother him. The disk issue which nagged at him before we left for the trip was rearing it's ugly head! But, we soldiered on enjoying the easier tread and the views down the canyon and the tracks! It was kind of interesting to be up on this abandoned track; though terrible to see all of the human dross and garbage that was left behind, including abandoned rail cars both on the tracks and down in some of the hillsides. Rusting reminders of our throw-away culture. We actually stopped at one time so we could do so some stretching hoping that would help the disk problem for Yeti. Lovely cactus along the way. We did come across some budding flowers. It's so dry and stark, but the plants that manage to be there are quite remarkable. We saw some kind of phacaelia and other small wild flowers. One of the spooky things was walking through the tunnels. The final one we did had a rock slide at the far end and we had to climb over the rocks to get out of the tunnel! We'd met the runners again coming back in the other direction and we asked for some more advice about where the tracks bent away from the gorge and for a good place to descend. It looked like Goat Canyon might be the spot. From there, we looked ahead and most of the cliffs looked a bit forbidding, so Goat Canyon it was! The canyon was long, so not the short route. The beginning was steepish, and we had a rocky descent, having to pick our way from a cliff face to a better way down along a ridge. It was slow going. Have to be careful not to fall on the rocks. Eventually, the canyon got a bit less steep, but it still took over 3 hours to finally gain the floor of the gorge. Luckily, here it widened up and the vegetation was not dense as before. We found a nice sandy camp and slept the sleep of the damned!
Lemstar
Melanie in Carizzo Gorge
Carizzo Gorge and Cache #1 Tuesday, March 08, 2022
Up early as usual. Yeti and I headed off down the gorge, now partly sandy, partly rocky, some brush. Glad it was so much more passable. We wound our way as the walls of the gorge led us right or left depending on the course of the landscape. It always amazes me in these dry areas to see any plants surviving, but these hardy desert plants are not just pretty faces...no they are a prickly lot but beautiful in there own way. Bees buzzing, birds and slithery lizards were the only "wildlife" we saw this day. Progress was still not fast. Care had to be taken to pick our way through boulders, but eventually the canyon widened again and a faint jeep track was occasionally visible. Small cairns also helped guide the way on a use track. After about 3 or 4 miles, we got to the jeep road that comes in from Highway S2 near our cache 1. It was easy going from here. We passed a camp set up - two cars were parked by the road, but no one was around. At this point, Yeti was having more trouble with his feet and legs and we were thinking that when we reached the highway we might have to hitch forward. We were already behind our schedule, but more important, Yeti was feeling very unstable on his feet. His legs felt week and he didn't trust his balance. Here we were all worrying about his heart issues and this disk problem is the one that is jeopardizing the trek. We reached the cache at about 4:20pm and soon got up to the road to try to hitch a ride. This road gets very little traffic and only 3 or 4 cars passed in over an hour. No one stopped and finally we gave up and set up camp. It was getting dark and too late to get a ride. Beautiful starry night. I was a bit worried about getting out of there. We had texted Princess and he had an interview in the morning. He did offer to come get us in the afternoon if necessary.
Lemstar
Barrel Cactus Blooms
Fateful decisions Wednesday, March 09, 2022
Morning came and Yeti's legs/back were feeling worse. He said he didn't think he could continue. We started to hitch and again, VERY little traffic. We finally got a ride with a nice woman, who first passed us by but then drove back to pick us up! She drove us toward San Diego...to Lake Henshaw Resort, where Princess later picked us up. We had a bite to eat from the little general store and waited for him to come. Got a motel in San Diego near the harbor and airport...in Point Loma. Quite nice really. Our friend Mike offered to drive our car down to get us. He would then fly back to Boise. We will have to drive north and retrieve all the caches we had just set! Very disappointing to have to end the hike so soon. But, as Yeti says, you have to be honest and know when to know to give it up. Mike will be here on Friday and then we all head back home on Saturday. Mike by air, Yeti and Melanie by car to dig up all the caches, what a shame.
Lemstar