Desierto de Altar and Pinacate Craters

viter

Adventurer
I've been wanting to go on this trip for 3 years, but it just wouldn't work out year after year and then finally this year we decided to go for it, even though out of a dozen original people interested in going it was down to only 2, until last week before the trip when the third one decided to join us last minute. And so it was - 3 people, 3 trucks...


Saturday morning Jesse and I both woke up a bit late after staying up late the night before getting last minute supplies and packing up (plus my last minute shock rebuild - thanks to the help from my good friend EZ!), but we still managed to get from San Diego to El Centro on-time around 8am. After loading up with firewood from Doc's backyard and some last minute prep (like filling Tahoe's radiator with a few gallons of water :D ) we were off towards the border crossing in san luis rio colorado. I was in the lead and already making some questionable decisions - like last minute freeway exits in front of a semi at a non-previously agreed upon point or getting gas at a place that then requires you to back track 3 blocks and waste 15 minutes just trying to get into the border-crossing line - this was a sign of things to come later in the trip. San Luis on USA side is definitely not doing well economically - there were so many gringos wanting to leave and go to mexico that the line to get into mexico took us over 30 minutes...

I got picked by the custom's agent on the mexican side to go to secondary, where I learned that you are not allowed to bring firewood into mexico, even if it is from a tree that was cut in El Centro, some 10 miles away from the fence. A few minutes of discussions in broken spanish and they let me go with a warning. Thanks to the radios, I got in touch with Doc and Jesse and, after filling up our gas cans with 30 gallons of reserve fuel, met up with them for some much-needed lunch break - a street-side mariscos stand that had all kinds of awesome seafood! Jesse got some special birthday clams since he was turning 30 that day!

30 minutes on the highway and one agricultural check later by around midday we finally arrived to the turn-off into the dirt, with our destination for tonight appearing far in the distance

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viter

Adventurer
As we got off the highway that saturday afternoon we could see the sand dunes quite far in the distance rising out of the flat desert floor. The road leading to the dunes had soft sand and gradual turns making it pretty fun to zoom along at high speed. Eventually I started loosing the tracks on the ground and had to start making my own way thru the desert shrubs. We almost always follow some type of a road in mexico so just going off into what seemed liked a limitless desert with no tracks felt a bit uneasy.

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Luckily we had a track that another friend drew up for us in google earth based on his recollection of the unimog trip where he rode a dirtbike, basically working as a scout, through these same dunes. Still the track was just an approximation (except the dirt roads in and out, which were actually very helpful), so we kind of just looked at the compass and the sun above our heads and headed into the growing dunes.

At this point we already lowered the pressure to around 12-15 psi (depending on the vehicle). As we hit the first group of dunes it was quite fun picking our way thru. We were making it up bigger and bigger waves of sand, switching the order of trucks so that everybody could have a chance at picking fresh lines.

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Eventually we reached a group of rather big dunes. Jesse and I unsuccessfully tried to make it to the top and over the sharp razor of the tallest one, but couldn't make it, as the run up was so long and the last portion so steep that the trucks simply did not have enough momentum to make it over. It was fun trying though. We also got a taste of how well Doc could drive the tahoe when he easily made it up to the shelf near the top of the dune, where Jesse and I parked to walk over to the razor. We could see from the razor that the backside had tracks of other vehicles and kind of looked like a play area, like competition hill in glamis. Jesse found a way around the tallest dune thru some large but doable sand dunes and eventually we made it to the play area, complete with a cross and a grill installed by mexican off-roaders - this place is a bit of a landmark and you can find pics/videos of that area on-line.

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can you make out Jesse's truck at the bottom of the play area?

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viter

Adventurer
While in that area we checked the time and our relative location on the gps and were a bit shocked to learn that we have barely bit into the sea of sand even though we've been driving off-road for over 3 hours. Nobody said anything at the time, but in our minds we were starting to question whether we brought enough extra gas and whether or not we could make it through in 2 days.

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So we decided to stop playing so much and try to keep up a good pace. At some point Doc, who was in the lead at the time, came up onto a big razor and stopped at the top just before the lip to make sure the bowl it dropped into was doable. As he started moving again the truck dug into the sand just at the tip of the razor. Jesse came to the rescue with his new super stretchy tow rope that he was eager to try out.

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it was starting to get dark now and the shadows of the dunes were growing.

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Jesse was in the lead a lot at this point in the trip, finding way thru some pretty big dunes. He climbed one of the dunes pretty much sideways with the Raptor engine roaring and the tires throwing fountains of sand up into the air. Doc and I had some fun trying to follow in his tracks. After a few futile tries and getting stuck in ruts left by the Raptor at the steepest point, I ended up finding a different line that included some shrubs for a little added traction. Doc improvised even more and found a perfect line up completely opposite side of the dune - much to my dismay as I kept hoping to try out my freshly installed rear winch to drag him up the sand dune.
 

viter

Adventurer
Eventually I got to be in the lead, as we descended into one of the valleys between the rows of dunes. The valley wasn't flat either, it jsut consisted of smaller dunes and some shrubs. It was getting darker, plus I was feeling a bit tired from lack of sleep and driving all day. I kept checking where south was on my phone GPS and trying to pick the line of least resistance thru the valley. This wasn't working very well - as I would look at the phone compass, I would end up usually either running over some bushes or dropping off the razors of the little dunes - which wasn't dangerous, but certainly a bit exciting when the front of your truck drops off a few feet unexpectedly, or even more exciting when just one wheel did that sending one corner of the truck down and the opposite one up. Doc and Jesse had to follow in my tracks wondering what the hell I was doing. It was certainly time to find a campsite. I asked birthday boy where he wanted to camp and he said somewhere in the bigger dunes would be nice, so I beelined it straight to the biggest dune I could see, drove into a sizable hole and called it a campsite. The hole was kind of nice as it hid us from view of the potential people crossing the valley. This area has some reputation for drug trafficking so we were not necessarily looking forward to late night visitors. Finally it was time to start a fire, cook some "meat bags" in the coals and enjoy a few beers!

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One of us also had some "business" to take care of, that involved large foil wrapped packages and late night sattelite phone calls...
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viter

Adventurer
we ended up making a ton of food, which was great after a long day! beer certainly helped too, and Jesse brought a few IPA's along, so we had some great variety!

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Jesse played the GWC again and got some awesome shots of the dunes at night!
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viter

Adventurer
Night was pretty cold, since it was still only middle of February. I was glad to wake up and not find any scorpions curled up next to me in the sleeping bag. Originally I was going to sleep in the bed of my truck, like normal people did, but after a few beers I came to the conclusion that it is too cold for snakes and scorpions to be out that night. Besides, there is something about the idea of sleeping on the edge of the dune that makes you think it is awesome, even though in reality you end up in the windy spot with sand in your eyes. This is what our camping hole looked like in the morning thru Jesse's camera.

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We couldn't complain about the view either...
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According to the GPS we made pretty good progress last night and were close to half way thru. Refreshed and in good spirits we restarted our journey.

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Once in a while as we would approach a big dune, we would get out to go look over the razor. One of these times, I got out of my truck and started running up a pretty big razor. About half way up I see that the guys didn't want to wait and took off finding their way up in trucks. By the time I reached the top and looked over they were already on the other side and I now had to run all the way back. I am sure they were laughing their asses off.

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later in the day Doc was in the lead going thru a series of smaller dunes and managed to get slightly high centered on the razor of one of them. As Jesse was getting ready to pull Doc out we discovered that the guy who installed the front tow bar on the tahoe also removed the tow hooks in the process. So we had to wrap the strap around the base of the tow bar instead.

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Raptor easily pulled Tahoe of the mini-razor, but we noticed that the tow bar was not sitting straight anymore.

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Upon closer inspection we found that the frame got ripped open at a place where the tow bar was attached on one side, most likely due to an already existing crack. We unbolted the tow bar and kept going.

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viter

Adventurer
Raptor - always ready to attack next set of dunes.
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Tahoe picking it's way up another climb.
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Sometimes we would see the mountains to the east. Somewhere there were volcanic craters that we wanted to check out on our way back.

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viter

Adventurer
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My truck served as a camera truck for good portion of the morning with Jesse's GoPro mounted on my rear door window. This was pretty fun as I would try to follow closely to Doc or Jesse to get some footage. At some point we found some relatively fresh tracks in the sand and started following them thru the dunes. The track weaved thru a series of dunes with lots of tight turns and off-camber transitions - Jesse was driving pretty quickly thru it all and i was trying not to fall behind with the camera - this was soooo much fun! Unfortunatelly the camera ran out of juice so i don't think we got any footage of it.

Being in the back also meant that you were driving thru the sand churned up by 2 other trucks, which in my case, meant multiple unsuccessful attempts up a few climbs that the 2 other trucks just made it over without much issue. Having to back down a steep incline with the truck slightly sideways has its interesting moments too. Nevertheless, we all kept making it thru.

You can't really tell from this picture but some of these dunes had quite a steep backside to them that was pretty much only 1 way. The only way to make it back up would have been with lots of winching.

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As midday was approaching it certainly seemed like we were getting very close to the last set of dunes. I was in the lead for a little bit and led us into a group of sand dunes that seemed pretty much impassable (not sure if you noticed the trend yet, but my navigational skills are a bit questionable). I ran up to the top of the sand dune in front of me only to discover a very steep back side with a hole of doom at the bottom. And as far as I could see in that direction there were similarly big impassable dunes after that one. We tried to drive around a bit thru some smaller dunes but eventually reached another point with a hope of traversing over the big dunes - nobody really wanted to keep driving around. I went to check out one dune and Jesse drove over to check out another. Mine seemed impossible once again and Jesse came back over the radio saying that there is no way to make it over the dunes where he was either. There was another dune transition to the right that looked like it might be doable. I walked over along the razor to check out what was on the other side of that and found that there was a nice flat spot at the top and what looked like a way out thru just a few more big dunes.

I got back into my truck and drove down to the bottom of the hole to the right. From the top the climb looked very doable, but from the bottom it looked a bit intimidating - as you had to drive on off-camber side of the bowl and hit up a bit of a steep section just before making it to the top. At this point though my foot was already on accelerator and it was too late to have second thoughts. Luckily things just looked intimidating from the bottom and the truck easily made it up over the top and into the "flat" area on the other side. Doc gave it all he got and raced up the dune as well. Jesse in his Raptor made things look easy yet again and we all happily continued thru the last bit of big dunes. Sorry, no picture or video of this.
 

viter

Adventurer
Doc, has been saying that he is smelling the sea for the past hour or so, while Jesse and I just joked about various reasons why he could be hallucinating. ;) But he wasn't that far off, as we cleared the last set of big dunes all we could see ahead was a huge and relatively flat valley leading towards the sea of cortez. We couldn't see the sea, but it was certainly there. Jesse checked the GPS track on his phone again and we set of towards a dirt road that should lead us across the railroad tracks and towards the paved highway.

Unfortunately the way to this dirt road consisted of driving for what seemed like eternity straight across desert tundra full of small bushes and bumps - you couldn't go fast as the bumps were too big, too hard, and everywhere. As I was picking the route thru the bushes, Jesse noted that I must be trying to pick the worst route possible, as he kept hitting all the bushes following in my tracks. This all made sense considering I was picking the route where my truck would barely fit between the bushes, and Jesse's Raptor, wider by about a foot, would end up hitting all of them. If ever on this trip we wished for a smooth dirt road it was now, but the suffering continued...

until we reached it - a FLAT road in the middle of the bumpy desert!

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After airing up it was time to hit 50-60mph on the nice dirt road clearly leading us towards the sea. Luckily Jesse was in front of me and could warn me of the serious washouts - one of them was probably a few feet deep ravine washed out by a random desert storm. It was fun to be going fast again after full 24 hours in low range!

And then we reached the railroad.

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viter

Adventurer
Next to the railroad crossing there was an abandoned station building that judging by some images on the walls might have been populated by the military at some point.

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After getting our fill of artsy pic taking, we got back on the dirt road. Within 5 minutes we were back to a paved highway, which felt good after the complete isolation that you feel in the dunes. And we could see the sea of Cortez from here, with El Golfo de Santa Clara appearing on the right. The very unusual for us sight was seeing Baja mountain range on the opposite side, since normally we are over there.

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As good as it felt we still wanted to take a dirt road we saw on google earth into El Golfo de Santa Clara. So we crossed the highway and took off for about a mile, when the road just dropped off into undriveable canyon below.

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I am not sure what happened to the road there, but it was definitely gone, so we had to turn around and go back to the highway. Highway quickly led us into el Golfo, which is a small fishing town at the northern end of the eastern coast of the sea of Cortez. We got gas at pemex and headed towards the beach on the dirt streets to look for a restaurant. It is worth noting that we didn't end up really needing any of the 30 gallons of gas that we brought in cans with us. I still had 1/4 tank of gas left in my truck. Having that extra gas in the dunes though did give us peace of mind.

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viter

Adventurer
We got lunch at El Delfin restaurant (there are signs in town pointing the way to it). This restaurant is a bit pricey for being situated in a small town, but I read somewhere about it before and the food didn't disappoint - we had some fish and shrimp tacos, fish ceviche tostadas, and a great appetizer of some other seafood that I can't remember how to say in English at the moment. Plus, some good chavelas - sol beer with clamato, lime, and salt. It was great to just sit down, eat, drink and relax after our adventures in the dunes. Plus we got phone service and Doc was able to call his daughter and congratulate her on her Birthday.

We left the restaurant and headed thru town towards the beach. The locals here seem to enjoy the beach quite a bit - besides fisherman, there were a lot of locals that would bring their cars and trucks to the beach to play in the dunes by the water or just chill on the beach. We headed south along the beach, eventually reaching an area free of people, except a few houses occasionally here and there. The tide was really low and we had lots of options on which line to take on the beach.

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You could drive just as fast as on the freeway on some sections with harder sand, but some sand was really soft and you would see the truck tires leaving deep tracks on the virgin sand behind you. We were having fun speeding along. Some of the lines I took seemed smooth at first but would end up running into an occasional wash out or deep holes in the semi-flooded zone - pretty sure my truck got airborne at least once, as I could see a break in my tire tracks left on the beach after one such surprise washout crossing.

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viter

Adventurer
Eventually we started looking for a place to camp. Since this area is known for large tides we couldn't just camp on the beach. There were sand dunes and then just cliffs next to the beach with a road going up the cliffs once in a while.

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Eventually we found a road that took us from the beach to the cliffs just above it.

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We followed this road along the cliffs until it's ended and set-up camp right on the cliffs behind a rise in the road to be somewhat hidden from the road.

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We started a fire but decided not to cook anything tonight as we were still full from our lunch.

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So we set around the fire drinking beers, eating some snacks, and enjoying an early rest. I do remember having a long discussion about finding San Felipe on the opposite side of the sea, Doc pulling out a map and a compass and showing us how to find San Felipe from that point. The beers definitely made this a more lively discussion, as Jesse kept saying that San Felipe was further to the south. I think we never quite settled it till next morning... :D

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Turned out to be a pretty nice campsite with some cool views of the sun setting behind the mountains across the sea.

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viter

Adventurer
In the morning we found that the tide mysteriously hasn't moved even though we now been watching the beach for over 12 hours - a mystery to resolve during another drinking night...

On our way back towards the highway, somewhere along the cliff road we ran into a few fisherman dwellings. A tiny house with a chill dog, an old truck and a fishing panga situated on the cliff overlooking the beach looked almost idyllic, but one had to start wondering how hard a fisherman's life here really was.

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Shortly we reached the highway and headed south along the salt flats towards Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point). It was cool to see road signs with names of towns we've only seen on google earth before.

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viter

Adventurer
My original idea about Puerto Penasco was that it was like San Felipe of the mainland, I couldn't be more wrong. As we approached the city we could see skyrise resorts rising out of the flat landscape.

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We drove towards the tourist nest only to discover that every access road to the beach by the fancy resorts was behind a security gate and thus inaccessible to us poor travelers. We kept driving and found a super whooped out hill locals (who looked like US ex-pats living in a little beach-side village nearby) would come play with their ATV's on. The view from the top was cool - village to the north, resorts and actual town of Puerto Penasco to the south.

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Jesse shot a few cool pics while Doc headed to check out the village.

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viter

Adventurer
We headed into actual town, first on accident driving into the touristy "artisan" area.

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This worked out as Doc was hoping to find something local to bring home. While he disappeared in the depths of souvenir shops, Jesse and I got surrounded by local kids who wanted a $1 and spoke surprisingly good English for foreign 7 year olds. They also surprisingly to us knew nothing about Baja Mil and weren't interested in steekerz. I flat out refused to give them anything, while Jesse decided to be friendly and promised them a $1 if they cooperated for a picture. Result!

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