Carrizo Gorge Wilderness Backpack - ABDSP

Gary and I spent the long 3 day Memorial Day weekend leisurely traversing the Carrizo Gorge Wilderness with no more of an agenda other than getting back to our trucks sometime by the end of the day Monday. Mr Tom was kind enough to drop us off at Jacumba on Sat morning and was going to hike with us for the day but the weather was kinda cold and blustery and I guess his jacuzzi and booze back home sounded better so it was just Gary and I.

Carrizo Gorge is one of those easy to get to wilderness areas that just never gets old and it has a long history with the railroad and the now famous Goat Canyon Trestle. The trestle seems to be growing exponentially in popularity and I suspect that will continue until the railway patrols pickup again. This particular trip we saw as many as 10 motorcycle adventurers in addition to all of the usual hikers and MTB'ers.

There is something about the Gorge that seems to beckon film photography and I always enjoy taking at least one older analog camera with me. The B/W photos here are from my Fuji GW690 6x9 medium format camera and the film is Fuji Acros 100 developed 1+2+100 in PMK Pyro @13 minutes. A few of the photos I took were an attempt to mirror photos found in the The Impossible Railroad book.

Carrizo Gorge with Sombrero Peak way off in the distance to the right


Following the tracks, some of the trestles are in good shape, others not so much


One particular set of railway cars that has been out on the tracks for several years now has been heavily vandalized.


On page 36 of The Impossible Railroad book there is a picture showing the Young & Crooks Camp 1 and all of the workers tents and the compressor plant equipment. This is the roughly the same photograph but the only thing you can still see are foundations of cement and many of the cleared areas that were built up with rocks to form a tiered foundation for the large tents they used


Gary at a few of the railroad camps


This workers camp overlooks the gorge and has approx 5-6 built up tiers for large tents. Most of it is overgrown with cholla now though.




Here is another photo from The Impossible Railroad book
on page 40 showing tunnel 15 where they eventually gave up on that tunnel and built the tracks around it


We found a huge horseshoe, looked more decorative than useful


This is one of the cooler tunnels out there


Gary heading into tunnel 16, this one has a history of fires and collapses which is evidenced by the tweak on the top. The inside supports you see in the other tunnels are missing which I am guessing is from the 1986 fire that burned it out


What would a trip thru the Gorge be without a photo of the Trestle


Eventually we found our way to the East Fork and the Carrizo Palms. There was some water and lots of wildlife tracks


Unfortunately this poor gal was not able to make it to the water source. I was able to go out a few days later with a Fish & Game Biologist to perform a post-mortem and the cause of death was determined to be from disease


Rock Art



I did manage to get some digital shots as well, love the sunrise photos with a super zoom


The Goat Canyon Trestle has several "catwalks" built in to facilitate repairs and maintenance duties and there is also an elaborate fire supression system built into the trestle with many pipes and valves that lead up to the water tanker on the hillside above. This photo is looking straight thru the first catwalk and some of the water pipes are visible. I can't recommend walking these catwalks at all, they are sketchy at best


Gary enjoying some of the water at Carrizo Palms


Reptiles were out and about, we found 2 in the same spot with head injuries, pretty strange, anybody have any ideas? We were thinking hawks or such




This guy was chilling in the shade of the tunnels


Railroad camp debris, re-purposing a shovel for something?


This is more my speed, a real fifth bottle of whisky


Anyways, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed...time to turn in.....




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The Impossible Railroad & Carrizo Gorge Solo Backpack

Spent a few days hiking and backpacking around Jacumba and Carrizo Gorge with an emphasis on trying to find some of the old railroad construction camps. Inspired by the book The Impossible Railroad I backpacked out into the Gorge battling the Tamarisk and ticks and found several of the camps, train wreckage, historic artifacts and even more interest in this fascinating story of a railway that was jinxed from the beginning. I encourage you to read this book if you want to learn more about the history and see many unpublished photos of the railroad as it progressed from 1919 to our present day fiasco it still is.

I will post some of my favorite photos of the trip here but you can see many more in my photo gallery here

The railroad tracks are completely blocked off as of 02-14-2015 at the De Anza resort. The old train cars that have been off to the side for years have been pulled up onto the tracks completely blocking access to railway vehicles. You can see in this picture that whatever large vehicle it took to move those rail cars have dented and smashed down the actual tracks. The picture is deceiving, it looks like the rail car is on the tracks normally but they are actually laid cross wise on the tracks, like a big tractor or such just dragged them up and onto the tracks at an angle.



Young & Crooks Camp 1 down in the gorge


Most of the construction sites built up tiered foundations on the hillsides. They were very elaborate and quite impressive






Debris from the construction camp




The May 1965 derailed Coors Beer trailer


The wheels wedged into a dry fall


I found several small rooms dug into the hillsides that must have served as offices or temporary shelters






Or perhaps they were the supply rooms for the important stuff


Plenty of beautiful blooms starting to happen now




Most of the tunnel bypass roads were clear but some had landslide debris covering them or worse cholla land mines, this one I did not win, I took heavy casualties, even my hiking pole got several stuck on it!


Here is a nice view down the gorge towards the Seven Sisters and in the foreground is the original tunnel 15


A bit more old debris in some other construction sites










About the only graffiti I wasn't discouraged to see



Total Mylar Balloons this trip - 5 (no pictures sorry..!)


More photos in my gallery here

Carrizo Gorge Backpack - ABDSP

Headed out for an overnight backpack trip with Tom in Carrizo Gorge. We parked at the end of the 4WD drive road and started out late in the day with about 30 minutes of daylight left. We managed to get to Goat Canyon in the dark where we setup camp. We poked around the next day for about 6 miles total into the gorge before we turned around and headed back.



Tom


Looking south thru the gorge, Goat Canyon is just ahead and to the left


I call this the Mighty Groan but I think the actual BM is above this point a bit.


Breaking camp


I hardly recognized the Gorge this trip, the Tamarisk removal efforts have removed much of the thick brush.


We found some wildlife...wasn't too wild at the time though...


Here is the lower jaw bone


Figured I would try the Macro mode on my new Fuji XE-1 so here is a close up of the jaw bone


Upper jaw and macro shot




This next photo is what i think is the intestine/colon of the ram, you can see pellets inside. From what I understand, sheep, goats and such are very efficient in using every last drop of moisture in their bodies and they literally squeeze the moisture out of their feces so the pellets form inside the colon.




Tom with the Seven Sisters above


There are several rail cars over the side here, one is rusted just enough that it blends in with the natural desert terrain


Here are a couple close ups of the different rail cars






Total Mylar Balloons this trip - 1 (Tom snagged it)