viter
Adventurer
it was a great trip!
in summary (pics when I get home from work):
My friend (Doc) in an older model chevy tahoe and I in my taco crossed the border on thursday around 3:30 pm in Tecate, took toll road to Rumorosa, then got on the racecourse and covered 20 miles of it from rumorosa to checkpoint 1 in 3 hours (half of the driving in the dark) - this portion included the rocky and tight switchbacks of the rumorosa grade and then a good section of the desert. Mike and RJ arrived to our camp later that night around 10pm. They miraculously found us in the middle of the desert just a couple miles south of the actual border!
On friday we moved over from our camp by checkpoint 1 to a whooped out section around RM 137 and watched the race there until about 4pm (all bikes, quads, sidecars, and majority of class 1's and trophy trucks plus a few vehicles from other classes have gone thru by then). It was an exciting spot to watch as it really allowed the racers to show off how quickly their vehicles and they themselves can go over very rough desert terrain - saw people catch air, land hard, wheelie over some whoops, and 1 moto rider crash but not very hard. Also saw one rider and one trophy truck cut cross-country straight across the desert instead of following the racecourse. Never saw the VW touareg trophy truck go by. Saw the new F150 Raptor roll by - it was in one piece but I can't really say it was going very fast through those huge whoops. Doc and I left around 4pm so as to try and make it back to Rumorosa before dark, while Mike and RJ stayed for a little bit longer to watch the race some more. Eventually we found the highway and drove that back to Rumorosa. Got there around 6pm, waited for about an hour for more race vehicles to come through and then got going to Laguna Hanson on another dirt road. (We had to wait because racecourse was sharing about 7 miles of the dirt road we were taking and basically this was the only road we could take. Luckily by then almost all race vehicles have gone by and we only met a couple racers - we could see their headlights from far away and moved over to the shoulder to make sure we leave them plenty of space to go by.) We kept driving through the pine forest for a while in the dark and eventually decided to just camp in the forest before getting to Laguna Hanson. We slept in our vehicles as it got down to 34 degrees at night.
On Saturday we got up early, drove through Laguna Hanson and kept following dirt roads to HWY 3 that goes from Ensenada to San Felipe. Once on the highway we drove south to Valle de la Trinidad where we were ploanning to get gas. The gas station was out of fuel and they were not expecting to have any until at least 3-4 hours later. Map showed another gas source about 10 miles further up the road at San Matias and gas station owner confirmed that they should have gas there in gas cans and drums. We didn't want to wait 3-4 hours since we still had lots of ground to cover before nightfall, so we drove to San Matias got just enough $5/gal gas from a can to make it over the mountains and drove a couple miles back north on the highway to the turn-off to Mike's Sky Rancho. After about an hour or two of driving on pretty good dirt-roads and wondering whether or not we are following the right roads we got to the Mike's. Inside we met the owner himself and had some lunch (they made lunch just for us as the only other visitors there were two guys from California who left shortly after we arrived). While there we deeply regreted not having any rideclubsd stickers to smakc on the wall. After a good lunch we started the hardest portion of the road on our trip - the road going west out of Mike's to El Coyote Ranch and further up to connect with the paved road to the observatory. It was a pretty short distance but it took us a while driving often in 4-wheel drive low range up some steep rutted rocky and loose uphils and downhills. It was fun nevertheless - I witnessed Doc's heavy tahoe sliding sideways on the rocks and lifting one of the front wheels a couple feet in the air, I myself cheated on the hardest section and engaged the locker not wanting to beat on the truck harder than necessary considering how far we were from civilization. I am not sure how 2wd race vehicels make it through that section in previous races as the hardest climb is right after a switch back and it offers you a choice of picking a line either through big rocks and ruts on the off-camber slope or really loose mix of rocks and dirt on the other side. All along we kept wondering at every road split whether or not we are taking the right road, so when we saw El Coyote Ranch and later pavement by the Melling Ranch we were sure happy. Pavement let us up through the hills and further up a mountain to the entrance of the Parque Nacional de San pedro Martir. We registered at the entrance and found anice campsite near the side of the mountain in the middle of the pine forest. Aftre cooking some chili from a can and cheese burgers we sat aroudn teh fire, talked and drank some beer and eventually went to sleep. The sky was full of stars but it was even colder than on the previous night, so we slept in our vehicles again.
On Sunday we drove up the mountain another 10 miles on a dirt road leading to the observatory. There the official guide gvae us a ride in the back of his pick-up to the observatory itself. Right next to the observatory we found a ford excursion suv and another truck with a camper in the back parked on the side of the road. There was a group of people having breakfast by those vehicles. The camper truck license plate read "WTHRMAN". We talked with Weatherman for a bit and then went up inside the observatory to look at the biggest telescope in Mexico and then admire the magnificent views from observatory's top - you could see Picacho del Diablo (highest mountain peak in Baja at about 10000 ft), a bunch of different mountain ranges around and the desert floor below. It was a bit cloudy further in the distance, but otherwise we could have seen all the way to the ocean in the west and sea of cortez in the east. After the tour and saying good bye to the weatherman bunch we started on our journey back down the mountain to hwy 1. We were close to running out of gas but got to the next gas station on hwy 1 just in time. We have decided at this point not to go driving around on dirt roads by the coast as it was already pretty late and we wanted to get to the border by dark if possible. So we drove on the hwy 1 north until Doc started hearing funny noises from one of his rear tires. Turns out he cut the sidewall somewhere earlier (probably on one of those rocky climbs out of Mike's) and it was sipping out air at every revolution. We spent some time replacing that wheel with a spare and then kept going to Ensenada, through it and to hwy 3 north of Ensenada going into Tecate (it's called Ruta del Vino cause of a bunch of vineries along this road). After yet another checkpoint (we went through at least 5 of them on this trip and some in really far from highway places like Rumorosa Grade dirt road and dirt road to Laguna Hanson from hwy 3) we reached Tecate in the dark, not before Doc became famous international racer at the last checkpoint though - but that's a whole other story. In Tecate after driving through a maze of streets in the dark we finally found the border line thanbks to the signs posted throughout town. Line was pretty short and we crossed into US within an hour.
pics probably later tonight...
in summary (pics when I get home from work):
My friend (Doc) in an older model chevy tahoe and I in my taco crossed the border on thursday around 3:30 pm in Tecate, took toll road to Rumorosa, then got on the racecourse and covered 20 miles of it from rumorosa to checkpoint 1 in 3 hours (half of the driving in the dark) - this portion included the rocky and tight switchbacks of the rumorosa grade and then a good section of the desert. Mike and RJ arrived to our camp later that night around 10pm. They miraculously found us in the middle of the desert just a couple miles south of the actual border!
On friday we moved over from our camp by checkpoint 1 to a whooped out section around RM 137 and watched the race there until about 4pm (all bikes, quads, sidecars, and majority of class 1's and trophy trucks plus a few vehicles from other classes have gone thru by then). It was an exciting spot to watch as it really allowed the racers to show off how quickly their vehicles and they themselves can go over very rough desert terrain - saw people catch air, land hard, wheelie over some whoops, and 1 moto rider crash but not very hard. Also saw one rider and one trophy truck cut cross-country straight across the desert instead of following the racecourse. Never saw the VW touareg trophy truck go by. Saw the new F150 Raptor roll by - it was in one piece but I can't really say it was going very fast through those huge whoops. Doc and I left around 4pm so as to try and make it back to Rumorosa before dark, while Mike and RJ stayed for a little bit longer to watch the race some more. Eventually we found the highway and drove that back to Rumorosa. Got there around 6pm, waited for about an hour for more race vehicles to come through and then got going to Laguna Hanson on another dirt road. (We had to wait because racecourse was sharing about 7 miles of the dirt road we were taking and basically this was the only road we could take. Luckily by then almost all race vehicles have gone by and we only met a couple racers - we could see their headlights from far away and moved over to the shoulder to make sure we leave them plenty of space to go by.) We kept driving through the pine forest for a while in the dark and eventually decided to just camp in the forest before getting to Laguna Hanson. We slept in our vehicles as it got down to 34 degrees at night.
On Saturday we got up early, drove through Laguna Hanson and kept following dirt roads to HWY 3 that goes from Ensenada to San Felipe. Once on the highway we drove south to Valle de la Trinidad where we were ploanning to get gas. The gas station was out of fuel and they were not expecting to have any until at least 3-4 hours later. Map showed another gas source about 10 miles further up the road at San Matias and gas station owner confirmed that they should have gas there in gas cans and drums. We didn't want to wait 3-4 hours since we still had lots of ground to cover before nightfall, so we drove to San Matias got just enough $5/gal gas from a can to make it over the mountains and drove a couple miles back north on the highway to the turn-off to Mike's Sky Rancho. After about an hour or two of driving on pretty good dirt-roads and wondering whether or not we are following the right roads we got to the Mike's. Inside we met the owner himself and had some lunch (they made lunch just for us as the only other visitors there were two guys from California who left shortly after we arrived). While there we deeply regreted not having any rideclubsd stickers to smakc on the wall. After a good lunch we started the hardest portion of the road on our trip - the road going west out of Mike's to El Coyote Ranch and further up to connect with the paved road to the observatory. It was a pretty short distance but it took us a while driving often in 4-wheel drive low range up some steep rutted rocky and loose uphils and downhills. It was fun nevertheless - I witnessed Doc's heavy tahoe sliding sideways on the rocks and lifting one of the front wheels a couple feet in the air, I myself cheated on the hardest section and engaged the locker not wanting to beat on the truck harder than necessary considering how far we were from civilization. I am not sure how 2wd race vehicels make it through that section in previous races as the hardest climb is right after a switch back and it offers you a choice of picking a line either through big rocks and ruts on the off-camber slope or really loose mix of rocks and dirt on the other side. All along we kept wondering at every road split whether or not we are taking the right road, so when we saw El Coyote Ranch and later pavement by the Melling Ranch we were sure happy. Pavement let us up through the hills and further up a mountain to the entrance of the Parque Nacional de San pedro Martir. We registered at the entrance and found anice campsite near the side of the mountain in the middle of the pine forest. Aftre cooking some chili from a can and cheese burgers we sat aroudn teh fire, talked and drank some beer and eventually went to sleep. The sky was full of stars but it was even colder than on the previous night, so we slept in our vehicles again.
On Sunday we drove up the mountain another 10 miles on a dirt road leading to the observatory. There the official guide gvae us a ride in the back of his pick-up to the observatory itself. Right next to the observatory we found a ford excursion suv and another truck with a camper in the back parked on the side of the road. There was a group of people having breakfast by those vehicles. The camper truck license plate read "WTHRMAN". We talked with Weatherman for a bit and then went up inside the observatory to look at the biggest telescope in Mexico and then admire the magnificent views from observatory's top - you could see Picacho del Diablo (highest mountain peak in Baja at about 10000 ft), a bunch of different mountain ranges around and the desert floor below. It was a bit cloudy further in the distance, but otherwise we could have seen all the way to the ocean in the west and sea of cortez in the east. After the tour and saying good bye to the weatherman bunch we started on our journey back down the mountain to hwy 1. We were close to running out of gas but got to the next gas station on hwy 1 just in time. We have decided at this point not to go driving around on dirt roads by the coast as it was already pretty late and we wanted to get to the border by dark if possible. So we drove on the hwy 1 north until Doc started hearing funny noises from one of his rear tires. Turns out he cut the sidewall somewhere earlier (probably on one of those rocky climbs out of Mike's) and it was sipping out air at every revolution. We spent some time replacing that wheel with a spare and then kept going to Ensenada, through it and to hwy 3 north of Ensenada going into Tecate (it's called Ruta del Vino cause of a bunch of vineries along this road). After yet another checkpoint (we went through at least 5 of them on this trip and some in really far from highway places like Rumorosa Grade dirt road and dirt road to Laguna Hanson from hwy 3) we reached Tecate in the dark, not before Doc became famous international racer at the last checkpoint though - but that's a whole other story. In Tecate after driving through a maze of streets in the dark we finally found the border line thanbks to the signs posted throughout town. Line was pretty short and we crossed into US within an hour.
pics probably later tonight...
