Carrizo Gorge: The Impossible Railroad

Monday, February 23, 2015

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 I encourage you to read this book if you want to learn more about the history and see many unpublished photos of the railroad as it progressed from 1919 to our present day fiasco it still is.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.

Tracks are closed off near De Anza resort. Tracks are also looking pretty smashed up from whatever vehicle was used to move that rail car onto the tracks

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

Coors Beer Trailer that derailed in May 1965

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

Cleveland's Beardtongue, Penstemon clevelandii

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

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Carrizo Gorge hike to Egg Mtn - ABDSP

Scotty "C" and I headed out to hike down the length of Carrizo Gorge from the DeAnza Springs Resort to Egg mountain. We have been down in the Gorge several times before and knew what to expect, catclaw, reeds, water and plenty of solitude. We hiked about 2 miles on the tracks from DeAnza and then dived down into the thick of the catclaw where there were old remains of railway cars. There were about 4 sets of wheels and axles, a small car chassis and other debris. Along the way we also found two encampments with more debris. It was about 12 miles thru the Gorge to get to the end of the jeep road and then about another 7 miles on sandy jeep road to egg mountain. We got to the jeep road just before dusk and hiked the remaining 7 miles to the truck in the dark under an almost full moon. It was a perfect night for hiking without lights and we managed to pull this trip off in 12 hours.

Photos from the trip can be seen here

Scott knows there is catclaw down in the Gorge so he prepared his pack with anti catclaw plastic wrap

This is where we decided to drop down into the Gorge, about 2 miles from DeAnza

This is where we decided to try and go down into the gorge, about 2 miles away from DeAnza

Some old railway debris on the side of the Gorge

This looked a small ore cart or something, it was halfway down the hill. The wheels are dated 1909

Down in the Gorge Scotty "C" straps on the catclaw armor

Nice water pond area

Panorama of the small pond area in Carizzo Gorge

Busting thru some carrizo

Old mining debris

An old gear up on the cement foundations

Cholla and cactus forest

Down in the Gorge near Goat Canyon, two years ago this was flowing with water

This is about 1 mile south of Goat Canyon. 2 years ago we were here and it was a flowing river with water pools

Looking up at the train trestles and the two old railway cars that have fallen over the side. You can't actually see the big famous trestle from down in the Gorge, you need to climb up to see it.