Naranjos Road, Baja Sur

Quote: Originally posted by AKgringo

Sorry I can't be of any help, I have no idea where that road is. I am always interested in finding scenic, challenging roads/trails to explore, so maybe bumping this thread will bring in some info. Where is that road, and is it a good drive?

The road that crosses over the sierra from just north of the Los Cabos Airport/ San Jose del Cabo to just south of El Pescadero/ Todos Santos:



[Edited on 12-15-2014 by David K]

Quote: Originally posted by David K

Motoged posted photos of it not long ago... stand by and I will find them. It was built as an engineering nightmare with every rain washing it out.

Quote: Originally posted by motoged

Quote: Originally posted by David K Quote: Originally posted by motoged David, I think it is a great report And am glad you two are going further south than usual.... Drive the Rancho Naranja road from north of the San Jose del Cabo airport west to just south of Todos Santos....your Taco will thank you for it Always wanted to do that road Do you have photos? David, Here are some pics of that road....starting from the highway north of the airport....looking west: Some water... Up top... The Pacific... Coming out on the west side from the mountains (heading west)... One of the beer stops in Todos Santos... And a place there where you HAVE to eat

Quote: Originally posted by AKgringo

Please tell me that photos #4, #5 were taken FROM the road! I have driven some mean trails but that seems out of my league.

The Naranjas Road

Quote: Originally posted by AKgringo

D.K., I didn't really think that was the trail, after all Motoged did say your Tacoma would love it. It is a rainy Monday and I felt like playing. Where is that description?

Yes, the rain is coming (still dry in San Diego)...

From Walt Petersen's 1987 edition of The Baja Adventure Book...

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[Edited on 12-16-2014 by David K]

Quote: Originally posted by Floatflyer

My wife and I drove the Naranjas road in Jan of 2013 in our Ford Explorer. There had not been any significant erosion damage for quite sometime and I stated that 2 whd was possible driving from east to west, IMO, it would be a real b-tch going west to east because of the need to go very slowly over some areas that were uphill. For current conditions, I can't comment. http://forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=65198#pid7882...

Quote:

Originally posted by Floatflyer A week ago yesterday my wife, dog, and I decided to get away from the cloudy and windy East Cape for awhile. We decided to drive over the Sierra de La Laguna Mountains. We got to the intersection of Mex 1 and the dirt road which is just north of the San Jose Prison turn off. There is a cloth sign there that says "Presa La Palma". We headed west at about 10:30am on this wide and smoothly graded dirt road. You could easily drive a passenger car on this western side of the mountain road. It seems this road is the access for the construction of a dam in the lower foothills. Numerous groups of workers are installing re-enforced concrete linings to many vados to prevent runoff damage. You continue up this nice road for approximately 9 miles and here you will see another cloth sign "Presa La Palma" with an arrow pointing to the right. The road takes a 90 degree turn and appears to head downward towards the dam site which I could only see some dirt work a mile or so away. We continued to straight and went over a small hump and started downward on a more "normal" Mexican one lane + dirt back road. At this point I was still saying a decent driver in a passenger car would be fine. I had talked to a guy who had recently taken his motorcyle over this road and he issued a few cautions. I took a shovel and a big pry bar with me in our Explorer just in case. We continued down this road with no problems until about 16.4 miles into the trip. Here we encountered the first signs of road damage, still not a problem Next we started encontering run off caused ruts that were going down hill for 30-40 feet, maybe 12-15" deep and I needed to slow way down to get thru them. I did not need 4 wd but used low range to help brake as I went thru them. NOW I would recommend that a high clearance vehicle would be a good idea. If you goofed up you could get hi centered. Coming out of some of these ruts you needed to go up rough little grades and 4 wd makes this easier at a slower speed. Without 4wd you would have to accelerate up these and get bounced around a bit, your choice. These conditions continue on and off for the next 4.5 miles roughly, 20.9 miles from the Mex 1 intersection. The next semi challenge is when you reach Rancho El Aguaje. Here you "t-bone" into a dirt road and have the choice of going left or right. There is a sign that names the ranch. I was told to go right or you will wander around for hours, I don't know, I went right! By this time you are on basically flat terrain. From here it is just a matter of following a fairly nice dirt road, and now, passenger car friendly. You have to make an educated guess on a couple of forks but really it isn't very hard to pick the main road. You hit Mex 19 right across the street from Rancho Nuevo, a development south of Cerritios and Todos Santos. Total distance 32.9 miles and for us 2:45 min. We only stopped for a pee stop or two and a taking some pictures. I did not drive fast nor did I drive slow. I would say I drove at a comfortable and safe speed. The 2 spots I would think about if I had a longer wheel based vehicle was in going around a couple large 2'x4' boulders that had rolled onto the road. I was a little careful not to scrape the side of my car. We are not thrill seekers! Both my wife and I agree that this trip had no life threatening experiences but a bit of caution is needed. IF one was to travel from west to east a serious 4wd vehicle would be needed to uphill thru the rough spots. I would not go that direction. Overall, the east half of the trip was very easy for anybody and had the prettiest scenery. The west side is definitely more challenging and 4wd would be best. If you were a very experienced off road driver and had a high clearance vehicle you probably be ok. I had looked at the route on Google Earth before the trip and had a general idea of where I was going. I wrote down some GPS #s at some intersections and that was ok, pretty much a double check I was going in the right direction but not a mandatory need. So, we probably won't do this every year, for us it is like the coast road from La Ribera to San Jose, fine every other year or so. The eastern part of the drive would be a nice picnic trip, no stress. Hope this helps out. FF

Quote: Originally posted by Jack Swords

Good info, but having done the road several other times, looking for current info since the last hurricane. Doing the area N of La Paz in a week or so, then San Antonio de la Sierra, then hopefully the Naranjas road. The San Jacinto River is flowing well from Sierra de la Laguna across the Naranjas road now. That is the location of a visita of La Paz that sheltered folks when the locals made life dangerous for missions in Todos Santos and La Paz. David, I believe you have my photos of the ruins....??

Yes, on page 9 of your history photo web pages: http://www.vivabaja.com/swords/page9.html


Visita at San Jacinto, B.C.S.

Jack Swords and Edward Vernon were following the directions of author Tomas Robertson,
seeking the Jesuit chapel at San Jacinto. According to Robertson's book 'Baja California and its Missions'
c1978 La Siesta Press on page 48, they would find it between Todos Santos and Cabo San Lucas.


N 23°14.57', W 110°04.62' (NAD27)

I drove the Los Naranjos road on Sunday
it is in bad shape, but they are in the process of fixing it
at the moment it is a rough and slow drive
easy stretches alternating with badly washed out sections
very few tire tracks - mainly MC and quads

couldn't find any access to the San Jacinto ruins

My pics were taken in 2008.....the more recent pics above show some of the "improvements" (wider, some cement). First time I rode it by moto was 1994......some "ruts" could have swallowed a VW bug

Love the road and area....the pics DK put up of mine were all taken while on the road....the water was near the east side of the pass where there are homes ....maybe the rancho they are referring to.....

As Harald said, a beautiful area to see and worth the drive.

4 different places in Baja Sur named Los Naranjos

one is a community on the east side of the Los Naranjos road

Quote: Originally posted by David K

Good find Harald! I looked at the INEGI and Almanac topos and didn't see that. What map is this one?

Yah...I wuz wundrin, too

Quote: Originally posted by motoged

Quote: Originally posted by David K   Good find Harald! I looked at the INEGI and Almanac topos and didn't see that. What map is this one? Yah...I wuz wundrin, too

Harald, Thanks for the input I would never have found the place without your post. I am very unfamiliar with the IGENI BCS maps, but after a while I found my way. I did find the place on IGENI F12B44. For looking on Google earth find the place close to 23 13.052, -109 52.122. Seems to be a resort??? with lots of buildings.
I grabbed a couple of screen shots for the place

Quote: Originally posted by 4x4abc

Mapa E32 https://www.facebook.com/Cartografia-GPS-Mapa-E32-1170061016...

Quote: Originally posted by motoged

Quote: Originally posted by 4x4abc   Mapa E32 https://www.facebook.com/Cartografia-GPS-Mapa-E32-1170061016... Thanks, Harald.....I use that on my GPS but haven't gotten into it enough to view it on the computer as my version was the e-mail download dedicated to my GPS serial #....will play around with that one of these days. Best map for Baja nad Mexico in my experience....limited as it is.

Quote: Originally posted by 4x4abc

how about you do the update it'll be a fun trip!

Likely possibility.
Doesn't seem like this road sees much action.

We'll be coming from Cerritos and looking to drop a few folks at the airport on time before continuing on to Cabo Pulmo, so I'll need to have the confidence that we can at least get through before risking the possibility of missed flights.

Quote: Originally posted by 4x4abc

that's a combination I would not risk

It's on the AAA map.



[Edited on 10-11-2019 by David K]

What is this?

23.218706 -109.869123

Quote: Originally posted by JZ

Just tried to map it out on GE. Does this look about right? Looks to be about 37 miles. Lots and lots of turns. Man, it looks fun. Where is the water crossing? [Edited on 10-11-2019 by JZ]

JZ, what you mapped out was almost the exact course that last year's NORRA Mexican 1000 ran for the last leg into San Jose Del Cabo. (The difference is that the race course came in from the north, not in from HWY 19 south of Cerritos/El Pescadero like your track does).

You are right that there are LOTS and LOTS of turns.

In our car, it was my least favorite section of the entire race, due to the white-knuckle-factor. Way too narrow and slippery of a road to be going FAST in a WIDE, high HP, 2WD vehicle. If I was on a bike or a UTV, it would have been a kick in the shorts. If you're just driving it on a cruising pace, it's probably fine, but it's definitely not a nice smooth graded road.

There are some very narrow sections, some big drops off the side of the road, and some loose rock sections that get a little slippery.

There were no water crossings that I recall, but there were a few washes. The road book from the race doesn't call out any water crossings either. I guess based on time of year, the "wash" may be a "water crossing"

If anyone wants the road book with all the cautions/dips/jumps/washes/etc for this section, here's a link https://app.box.com/s/1ftk366s58gm0mlh8bcw49z38p48ue7l

The race course picks up to JZs track at about marker 34 in the book (the bottom of page 5).



[Edited on 10-11-2019 by aburruss]

Quote: Originally posted by tiotomasbcs

You're info is old!

Quote: Originally posted by Fernweh

We just drove that road on Dec 4th, after the big rain storm, from the Hwy 1 going West. The first part to the Sierra was nicely graded, then we noticed very recent dozer tracks. A few Km up the grade, we finally passed a working Caterpillar, and the drive became more interesting. The rain had left deep ruts in the dirt road, but easy to navigate through. You could tell, that the road had been maintained over the years, and I noticed many concrete sections/culverts since my last drive in 2009 on that road. Towards the top, the road got much narrower, and had not seen a dozer/grader in a long time. We encountered many washouts now, and three of them were quiet restrictive for larger vehicles, like a full size trucks. That road damage would be not easy to repair, in narrow turns with steep drop offs. It was very apparent, only few recent tire tracks, which indicated not much vehicle traffic here. The now western portion of that road was less severe damaged, compared to the eastern section. A few Km further the road got recently graded again, all the way to the Cabo - Todo Santos Highway. Overall, a very pleasant afternoon drive through the lush green Sierra Laguna mountains.

Quote: Originally posted by JZ

How difficult for a 2500 Chevy?