GHOST MOUNTAIN….MARSHAL SOUTH TRAIL

Tuesday, February 3 - We had another hike lined up for today. We had stopped in the Visitor's Center when we arrived in Borrego Springs, CA, on Saturday and viewed a film about Marshal South. It was excellent. Marshal lived on the top of Ghost Mountain, a remote, waterless mountaintop, with his wife and three kids. The remains of his homestead, Yaquitepec, are still there on top of the mountain. Guess we needed to go up and see it!

The turn-off to the trailhead was less than two miles down the road from our campground. Heading East on S2, we watched for the sign to Butterfield Stagecoach Route. This is also the road to Blair Valley. The trailhead is 3.3 miles off the paved road. We bumped along this sandy corrugated road at less than 10 miles per hour until we reached the parking area for the trail. We aren't too sure about the sanity of these long drives to reach these trials. Guess we're getting too old for this stuff!

Once parked we headed up the well-worn trail. The trail is a series of switch backs 1.3 miles in length to the top of the mountain. It's pretty rocky but not overwhelming. We did get a little winded from the steep climb - there's that old stuff again!

Bottom part of the trail.

Top part are huge boulders.

After about 30 minutes of climbing we reached the top. The view of the surrounding valleys is beautiful. It's hard to imagine why Marshal decided to make this his home. Was he insane or was it the solitary lifestyle and beautiful scenery he was after? We needed to think about that.

The beauty of Blair Valley.

Can you see our truck waaaayyyy down there?

The remains of his homestead are quickly returning to the scavengers of the earth. There really isn't too much left. A few walls, and old iron bed, a cistern, a sundial, a caved in roof, and a few other remnants. Very interesting to see and amazing that a family could live here for over 17 years.

The movie we watched explained how Marshal and his wife got all the lumber, furnishing, etc. up the trail. They used a Model T to get to the base of Ghost Mountain. They then had to carry everything up the trail. Egads….that had to be horrible.

As we began our decent down the trail we met a young couple coming up the mountain. Dang, they weren't breathing very hard! This is the only other people we saw all morning. They had just gotten engaged and were spending a couple days camping and hiking. We were the first people they told about their engagement. The gal said they hadn’t even told her mother yet. After a quick visit, we headed on down the trail and left the mountain retreat to the young lovers.

Here is the 3.3 mile dirt road we slowly made our way back on.

It was a very interesting hike, and we both enjoyed it. If you're in the area, we definitely recommend the hike. Be sure to have your hiking boots on. We have one or two more adventures in the Borrego Springs area, so stop back.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

A SLOT AND A SNAKE

Monday, February 2 - We headed out early this morning with a couple of hikes in mind. It was a little cool (32 degrees this morning) but by the time we reached the trailhead it had warmed-up nicely (60 degrees). It sure cools off in the desert of Borrego Springs, CA, at night!

Our first stop was the Slot Trail. We had to travel about two miles on a dirt road off the pavement to reach the parking area.

The scenery at the top is gorgeous.

There is no real trail down to the Slot. We started off by getting fooled by a wide path leading into the canyon - dead end. We retraced our route to find several steep paths leading down into the canyon.

We are going down there?

The beginning of the descent is very steep.

What a neat hike down to the "guts" of the earth.

There was never a claustrophobic feeling with the sky nearly always visible. There were some huge boulders hung-up overhead.

The neat thing was squeezing between the walls of the canyon.

 

We hiked about 2 miles round trip and really enjoyed ourselves. Our new camera received a good workout since we took a hundred pictures. This is an easy hike that we rank up there in the top ten hikes we've taken. Put this on your list, you'll enjoy this excursion.

After returning to the truck and making our way slowly over the washboard surface to the paved road, we headed to Peg Leg dry camp area on the Northeast side of Borrego Springs. We are searching for a serpent! We stopped and talked to several campers in the area, but no one knew what we were talking about. We decided to drive over to Rockhouse Canyon Road to Clark Dry Lake and try to find a trail up the back of the mountain.

After hiking up and down several trails without success, Paul spotted two other hikers, out of the corner of his eye, setting a flag up. Marsha recalled the serpent site was marked by a flag!Ahh...success! We had hiked near this area, but the flag was down. We hiked through a small canyon in front of us to finally reach the site of a serpent made from local stones. Somebody put a good deal of work in constructing this double row of dark rock with quartz on top to set the pattern of the snake. It's wonderful that people enjoy the sculpture without disturbing the construction.

We took a different trail back to our truck. It was a steep, rocky descent.

Can you see the trail in there?

At least Marsha had reached her 10,000 step goal on her Fitbit. We have several other hikes on tap for tomorrow, so check back and follow along.

Every night the sky is ablaze in the desert.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

JULIAN, CALIFORNIA

Sunday, February 1 - We took a ride up the mountain to the touristy town of Julian, CA, today.  The ride up the windy, twisty mountain road is very interesting. The scenery is wonderful. Not surprisingly, there were plenty of motorcyclist enjoying the curvy road.

Julian, 4,235 feet, is an historic gold mining town. This town is famous for their apples and specifically, their apple pie. So of course, we had to stop at famous Mom's for a piece of pie and a cup of coffee.  Paul had the traditional apple pie; Marsha had the sugar-free, applesauce sweetened piece. Both were very good.

We spent about two hours walking around town and visiting some of the shops. We left empty handed but enjoyed this quaint little town. We noticed how nice all the merchants are.

For the ladies, Marsha says…If you go to Julian’s, don’t miss E. Barrett General Store. It smells divine inside. There is a great story about the shop, and the owner makes all the lotions, soaps, etc.

It was such a gorgeous day, we just had to grill some chicken.

There are trails right from the campground. Bella just loves this place. Look at the name of the trail she chose for us to hike today.

Catclaw Trail.

This is the life!

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!