bob91yj
Resident **************
A couple of months ago Eric Filar proposed a week long trip tour of Baja in mid April.
Machelle and I had our first taste of the Sea of Cortez side of Baja while chasing last years Baja 1000. We said then that we had to come back and spend some time there, little did we know that it would be so soon.
After much preparation our adventure began Saturday the 16th of April. Scott and Tandi Hartman showed up at our house a little after 5AM. We headed south and crossed the border at the Tecate crossing. After a bit of searching we found the road that we were looking for and were officially in the dirt!
None of us were familiar with this area, so we made a wrong turn or two and did some back tracking, but we made our way to Valle de los Pinos (Valley of the Pines). Eventually we got to Laguna Juarez (Laguna Hanson). What a beautiful area with lots of camping. We all made mental notes that we have to include a night here on a future adventure. We continued south until we hit Hwy 3 just north of Valle de Trinidad. We stopped in town to get fuel and get lunch at the taco shop next door.
After lunch we continued south for a few miles until we got to Laguna Diablo dry lake. The graded road around the lake bed is smooth and fast so we made great time. We had intended to go straight to Morelli Rd, somehow I got on the SCORE race course track that cuts the corner to Morelli Rd. While that may sound like a short cut, the 4 foot whoops that we were driving through made it a miserable few miles. We finally made it to Morelli Rd and hot footed it in to San Felipe.
We stayed in a rented house at Playa de Oro the two nights we spent in San Felipe. Sunday was an off day for the Hartman's and us. Machelle's brother lives at Pete's Camp which is just north of San Felipe. We went for a drive up the beach to meet him for breakfast. I ended up rescuing a local who got his 4Runner stuck in the mud on the beach. We all spent some time in the water with the inflatable canoe's that we brought with us Sunday afternoon. As dinner time approached we drove in to town for dinner and drinks at the Miramar Bar.
Plans were for the Filars (Eric and Ellen) with Jeff and Kacey Lessley in Eric's F-150, and Ryan Stefanelli and Tory Vzellick in Ryan's Chevy D/Max to meet us at the bar. Machelle's brother went with us as well. There is nothing quite like good friends, cold beer, fresh fish and shrimp tacos and looking out over the Sea of Cortez!
We intended to get to Bahia de Los Angeles on Monday. We were making good time, got to Gonzaga Bay around lunch time. When we pulled in to the local taco shop the owner told us that the road we came in on would be under water in less than an hour. We were all a little skeptical.
You can watch the tide come in on the Sea of Cortez... it moves that fast. Sure enough, in less than an hour the road was gone! Another fantastic meal of fish and shrimp tacos and we were pondering our departure. We finally decided to give it a go and drove our rigs through the salt water back to dry land.
We were making good time south of Gonzaga on our way to Coco's corner when Hartman's Jeep died. After some trouble shooting we decided that it was a clogged fuel filter. We bypassed the filter and headed off again, only to stop again. We plumbed in an external fuel pump thinking the fuel pump had failed and were off again. The Jeep still quit running a time or two but made it to Coco's Corner.
Coco wasn't there. He's been in the hospital in Ensenada for a couple of months fighting an infection.
We headed south for Bahia de Los Angeles picking up pavement at the turn off to B/LA. As we got closer the wind picked up until it was almost a gale. I was white knuckling the steering wheel at times to keep the Jeep on the road in the highway section.
With the foul weather tents were going to be a chore, and it was already dark. We did a lap through town, found a taco shop, had dinner and decided to try to find a hotel. After two attempts we found a place on the beach with three rooms available and settled in for the night.
Tuesday morning was beautiful. After breakfast we found a place to camp at La Gringa. We spent the day doing nothing but having a good time. We spent time on the water just floating, or fishing. Tory had a paddle board, and taught their Chocolate Lab, Hank, to ride the board.
The tide swing on the Sea of Cortez is amazing, at least 12 feet while we were there. We were camped on top of a narrow gravel beach. At low tide there was 100' of beach below us and mud flats and a road behind us, at high tide the water was within feet of our camp on both sides. I paddled our canoe through the lagoon that was a road and mud flats at low tide.
We decided to spend an extra day at B/LA as Hartman's Jeep was still having issues. We finally decided it was the coil rather than a fuel issue. We found a Chevy coil in town that we could make work.
After a coin flip,(back to Gonzaga or to San Quetin) Thursday was a highway day to get to the Pacific side. We found rooms in San Quetin at the Mission Santa Maria Hotel, right on the beach. Friday we were headed up the coast to Mike's Sky Ranch. We stopped at the Pirate Bar north of San Quetin for breakfast, then took the coastal dirt roads to San Vicente.
We were on the Vineyard Rd headed to Valle de Trinidad when near tragedy struck...
I was second in our line of traffic. Eric Filar (leading our group) encountered a Class 1 car and two pre-runner buggies coming the other way. We were on a twisty mountain section, mountain on one side, cliff on the other. Eric told all 3 cars that there were three more behind him in our group.
Their leader got to me, and for some unknown reason never let the rest of his group know I was close. I was going slow and was as far out to the edge of the cliff side of the road as was reasonable when the second pre-runner came sliding around a blind corner and clipped my left front/side with his left rear tire.
It was a fairly hard impact, looking in my mirror I saw his left corner suspension and tire yard sailing off the car. My Kilby rocker guard took the brunt of the hit (and is unblemished) but he got enough of my tire to bend the left lower control arm mounts over towards the center, and bend my axle housing slightly.
Once we determined everyone was OK, I checked my driveability. Steering wheel was now positioned up side down, but it seemed to drive OK despite the damage.
We drug the broken buggy out of the way to let Ryan and Scott get by. The Class 1 driver was going to go back to San Felipe to get a truck and trailer to collect the crippled pre runner. The hit was hard enough that it tore the hub off of the suspension, Wilwood brake caliper was snapped off, rotor was snapped off where it was being held by the caliper, and the axle shaft was bent.
We got ourselves together and headed on to Mike's Sky Ranch. I could feel the toe out in my front tires but it didn't seem to be an issue, other than cupping the tires a bit. I had some concern about how it was going to handle on pavement but that was a problem for tomorrow!
After much needed showers we had the group dinner at Mike's and hung out in the bar till 10PM when the power gets shut off in the whole place, rooms and all. Scott Hartman needed to be home Saturday afternoon and I wasn't sure how my damaged rig was going to handle the highway so we agreed to an early start home. The rest of the group was going to have breakfast before heading home.
We were up early, as were a group in a Ford F-150 and a Toyota. We were all headed to the same place, and they intended to take the dirt, which was music to my ears. We agreed to join forces and caravan to Tecate. There was a section of highway through Valle de Trinidad. I was relieved to discover that my rig steered just fine on the highway.
We had no issues getting to Tecate. We said our good byes to our new friends while airing up. One final stop at a taco shop for lunch and we were in line at the border and headed for home.
Another grand adventure through Baja is in the books. We knocked out about 1200 miles, and I'd guess at least 800 of them were in the dirt. Planning for the next adventure is sure to start soon!
Huge thanks to Eric Filar for getting this set up.
(pics soon)
Machelle and I had our first taste of the Sea of Cortez side of Baja while chasing last years Baja 1000. We said then that we had to come back and spend some time there, little did we know that it would be so soon.
After much preparation our adventure began Saturday the 16th of April. Scott and Tandi Hartman showed up at our house a little after 5AM. We headed south and crossed the border at the Tecate crossing. After a bit of searching we found the road that we were looking for and were officially in the dirt!
None of us were familiar with this area, so we made a wrong turn or two and did some back tracking, but we made our way to Valle de los Pinos (Valley of the Pines). Eventually we got to Laguna Juarez (Laguna Hanson). What a beautiful area with lots of camping. We all made mental notes that we have to include a night here on a future adventure. We continued south until we hit Hwy 3 just north of Valle de Trinidad. We stopped in town to get fuel and get lunch at the taco shop next door.
After lunch we continued south for a few miles until we got to Laguna Diablo dry lake. The graded road around the lake bed is smooth and fast so we made great time. We had intended to go straight to Morelli Rd, somehow I got on the SCORE race course track that cuts the corner to Morelli Rd. While that may sound like a short cut, the 4 foot whoops that we were driving through made it a miserable few miles. We finally made it to Morelli Rd and hot footed it in to San Felipe.
We stayed in a rented house at Playa de Oro the two nights we spent in San Felipe. Sunday was an off day for the Hartman's and us. Machelle's brother lives at Pete's Camp which is just north of San Felipe. We went for a drive up the beach to meet him for breakfast. I ended up rescuing a local who got his 4Runner stuck in the mud on the beach. We all spent some time in the water with the inflatable canoe's that we brought with us Sunday afternoon. As dinner time approached we drove in to town for dinner and drinks at the Miramar Bar.
Plans were for the Filars (Eric and Ellen) with Jeff and Kacey Lessley in Eric's F-150, and Ryan Stefanelli and Tory Vzellick in Ryan's Chevy D/Max to meet us at the bar. Machelle's brother went with us as well. There is nothing quite like good friends, cold beer, fresh fish and shrimp tacos and looking out over the Sea of Cortez!
We intended to get to Bahia de Los Angeles on Monday. We were making good time, got to Gonzaga Bay around lunch time. When we pulled in to the local taco shop the owner told us that the road we came in on would be under water in less than an hour. We were all a little skeptical.
You can watch the tide come in on the Sea of Cortez... it moves that fast. Sure enough, in less than an hour the road was gone! Another fantastic meal of fish and shrimp tacos and we were pondering our departure. We finally decided to give it a go and drove our rigs through the salt water back to dry land.
We were making good time south of Gonzaga on our way to Coco's corner when Hartman's Jeep died. After some trouble shooting we decided that it was a clogged fuel filter. We bypassed the filter and headed off again, only to stop again. We plumbed in an external fuel pump thinking the fuel pump had failed and were off again. The Jeep still quit running a time or two but made it to Coco's Corner.
Coco wasn't there. He's been in the hospital in Ensenada for a couple of months fighting an infection.
We headed south for Bahia de Los Angeles picking up pavement at the turn off to B/LA. As we got closer the wind picked up until it was almost a gale. I was white knuckling the steering wheel at times to keep the Jeep on the road in the highway section.
With the foul weather tents were going to be a chore, and it was already dark. We did a lap through town, found a taco shop, had dinner and decided to try to find a hotel. After two attempts we found a place on the beach with three rooms available and settled in for the night.
Tuesday morning was beautiful. After breakfast we found a place to camp at La Gringa. We spent the day doing nothing but having a good time. We spent time on the water just floating, or fishing. Tory had a paddle board, and taught their Chocolate Lab, Hank, to ride the board.
The tide swing on the Sea of Cortez is amazing, at least 12 feet while we were there. We were camped on top of a narrow gravel beach. At low tide there was 100' of beach below us and mud flats and a road behind us, at high tide the water was within feet of our camp on both sides. I paddled our canoe through the lagoon that was a road and mud flats at low tide.
We decided to spend an extra day at B/LA as Hartman's Jeep was still having issues. We finally decided it was the coil rather than a fuel issue. We found a Chevy coil in town that we could make work.
After a coin flip,(back to Gonzaga or to San Quetin) Thursday was a highway day to get to the Pacific side. We found rooms in San Quetin at the Mission Santa Maria Hotel, right on the beach. Friday we were headed up the coast to Mike's Sky Ranch. We stopped at the Pirate Bar north of San Quetin for breakfast, then took the coastal dirt roads to San Vicente.
We were on the Vineyard Rd headed to Valle de Trinidad when near tragedy struck...
I was second in our line of traffic. Eric Filar (leading our group) encountered a Class 1 car and two pre-runner buggies coming the other way. We were on a twisty mountain section, mountain on one side, cliff on the other. Eric told all 3 cars that there were three more behind him in our group.
Their leader got to me, and for some unknown reason never let the rest of his group know I was close. I was going slow and was as far out to the edge of the cliff side of the road as was reasonable when the second pre-runner came sliding around a blind corner and clipped my left front/side with his left rear tire.
It was a fairly hard impact, looking in my mirror I saw his left corner suspension and tire yard sailing off the car. My Kilby rocker guard took the brunt of the hit (and is unblemished) but he got enough of my tire to bend the left lower control arm mounts over towards the center, and bend my axle housing slightly.
Once we determined everyone was OK, I checked my driveability. Steering wheel was now positioned up side down, but it seemed to drive OK despite the damage.
We drug the broken buggy out of the way to let Ryan and Scott get by. The Class 1 driver was going to go back to San Felipe to get a truck and trailer to collect the crippled pre runner. The hit was hard enough that it tore the hub off of the suspension, Wilwood brake caliper was snapped off, rotor was snapped off where it was being held by the caliper, and the axle shaft was bent.
We got ourselves together and headed on to Mike's Sky Ranch. I could feel the toe out in my front tires but it didn't seem to be an issue, other than cupping the tires a bit. I had some concern about how it was going to handle on pavement but that was a problem for tomorrow!
After much needed showers we had the group dinner at Mike's and hung out in the bar till 10PM when the power gets shut off in the whole place, rooms and all. Scott Hartman needed to be home Saturday afternoon and I wasn't sure how my damaged rig was going to handle the highway so we agreed to an early start home. The rest of the group was going to have breakfast before heading home.
We were up early, as were a group in a Ford F-150 and a Toyota. We were all headed to the same place, and they intended to take the dirt, which was music to my ears. We agreed to join forces and caravan to Tecate. There was a section of highway through Valle de Trinidad. I was relieved to discover that my rig steered just fine on the highway.
We had no issues getting to Tecate. We said our good byes to our new friends while airing up. One final stop at a taco shop for lunch and we were in line at the border and headed for home.
Another grand adventure through Baja is in the books. We knocked out about 1200 miles, and I'd guess at least 800 of them were in the dirt. Planning for the next adventure is sure to start soon!
Huge thanks to Eric Filar for getting this set up.
(pics soon)
