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 I encourage you to read this book if you want to learn more about the history and see many unpublished photos of the railroad as it progressed from 1919 to our present day fiasco it still is.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

Rockhouse Canyon in Carrizo Gorge Backpack

Veterans Day solo backpack trip out to Rockhouse Canyon in Carrizo Gorge. Was supposed to go with Tom but he couldn't make it. Took the new Fuji XE-1 camera, I still don't feel in command of it yet, especially with the night and star photos. The camera works quite differently then my Sony DSLR cameras. Biggest problem I noticed was it seems to focus past infinity but of course I couldn't tell until I got home and looked at the pictures. Good trip, found the palm oasis and stopped by the pictograph site. The old ranchers shack is still standing.

Remnants of the old road into the canyon before the park put the bollards up


I got in late at night and started looking for a place to put my sleeping gear down and found this guy


Not proud of any of these star shots, I need to dial in the new camera and it's settings






Moonrise


Here is a photo of the ranchers shack from an April 1947 Desert Magazine article and below is one I took on this trip. Much of the ocotillo still stands but one in particular right behind the shack is now gone.




And some random shots inside the shack










So now for the real agenda of the trip....follow the water pipe from the trough up the mountainside and see where it goes




Along the way I found a Sky Blazer, lot 61 Oct 2010(?)




Those damn ranchers were tough, that pipe went up 1,000+ feet to a palm oasis up on the ridge


I lost the pipe in several places and it is now since broken apart but I could find sections all the way up to the palm grove




Awesome views of Carrizo Gorge and the desert floor up at the palm grove


Some artifacts along the way


Figured I would stop and check out the pictographs while I was out that way










Total Mylar Balloon count this trip - 3 (sorry, no picture)