2009-11-24: Anza Borrego Tour

[OLLIE]

A guy that works with me has his 72 yr old father visiting from Arkansas. He is from around here but has really only seen the city sights. Dave (his son) wanted to show him the desert. I asked if he wanted me to give him the highlighted Anza Borrego Tour as we so affectionately call it now. So we met at his house around 6:30 am on Tuesday and headed out. I had my co-driver with me (my son) and Dave had his dad and his son (14 yrs old) with him. Dave's son is something. Every time he got a chance to get out of the Jeep he was immediately climbing the canyon walls. One time he was only wearing a shoe on one foot and just a sock on another. He is quite the little explorer.

We stopped at Cuyumaca Lake to get some pictures then drove up to Banner Store to air down. We ran Mason Valley Truck Trail (Oriflame) out to the S-2. We then ran the S-2 down to Canyon Sin Nombre and dropped in there. We got into Sin Nombre a little bit decided to park the trucks and check out a slot canyon on foot. When we got done with the slot canyon we decided it was as good as a place as any to eat some lunch. After we ate a bit we shot up Arroyo Tapiado where we checked out a few of the mud caves. My son absolutely loved the mud caves. His mom wasn't too pleased when she found out I took him in them though. After exploring the mud caves we back tracked to Arroyo Seco Del Diablo and then over to Diablo dropoff. It's amazing how much Arroyo Seco Del Diablo changes all the time. We did the Drop Off and worked our way through Broken Shaft Gulch (I never new that they named it but there's been a new sign installed and everything). The drop off and Broken Shaft Gulch are all uneventful now. There are seven routes up the lower drop off and the rocks are stacked nearly to the point of it being a highway in the Gulch. We continued out to Fish Creek and turned left to head up Sandstone Canyon. We drove to the back of Sandstone where it's been blocked off then walked back into it a little further. I still love that canyon. We then drove out and decided to check out Loop Wash which ties back into Fish Creek. In exploring Loop Wash I noticed Northfork Fish Creek Wash. I want to et out there and explore that one sometime. After tying back into Fish Creek we headed to Split Mountain for some more photos then out to the pavement to air up. The sun was setting and it got dark while we were airing up. It was a perfect day. The weather was perfect and there was now carnage.

LINK TO ALL PHOTOS TAKEN: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fj-ollie/s ... 768123663/

Cuyumaca Lake

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Oriflame Canyon

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[BorregoWrangler]

Nice run there, Ollie. That's lame about all those routes going up the lower dropoff. Last time I was there they had "closed route" signs on all those bypasses. And speaking of signs, was there any information on that Broken Shaft Gulch sign saying who put it there?

[gon2srf]

Great pics Ollie, the weather looked perfect.

[DaveK]

Nice trip, Ollie.

The best picture of the bunch:

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Way to start 'em off.

[OLLIE]

Thanks guys... I didn't see anything saying who put the sign there. I didn't look at the back side of it though. It is a very high quality sign.

[sdnative]

Looks like a lot of fun.

That sign was there on our BF run. I believe only one of the routes on the lower part of Diablo Dropoff has a sign. It's the second from the left, looking from the bottom.

[OLLIE]

I believe only one of the routes on the lower part of Diablo Dropoff has a sign. It's the second from the left, looking from the bottom.

None of the routes have a sign now.

[salad_man]

Beautiful pictures there

[photojeeper]

Cool run Ollie, I did a trip into the Carrizo area on Monday since my Death Valley trip got cancelled due to some other reasons. I went through that area in October and did not seen any signs, and the rocks were plentiful because I was having fun practising my rock crawling skils without using lockers . So someone is moving them around the area.

JJ