David K
Honored Nomad
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Location: San Diego County
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Mood: Have Baja Fever
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EL CAMINO REAL, from space! (near San Borja)
While it is difficult to see the old trail between San Borja and Calamajue, south of San Borja (where Jesuits had time to build their great King's
Highway) it is easier to spot!
Going south from San Borja, the ECR goes straight south from the grade above the mission and climbs via several switchbacks seen here:
ECR near San Borja-1
It is a deep warn path across the mesa: ECR near San Borja-2
ECR near San Borja-3
ECR near San Borja-4
Here the Camino Real goes into a lower resolution area: ECR near San Borja-5
Remember,you can use your mouse and fly over the trail from the points I gave links to, and see much more of it!
More to come!!
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David K
Honored Nomad
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Registered: 8-30-2002
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While I have redone the Camino Real from Space series on Google Earth (more of a 3-D look), these straight down satellite images of the mission road
still work from the links I posted here 7 years ago!
Links to the entire Jesuit ECR series of images and maps are on this page: http://vivabaja.com/missions2/page13.html
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Whale-ista
Super Nomad
Posts: 2009
Registered: 2-18-2013
Location: San Diego
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Mood: Sunny with chance of whales
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very cool! thanks for sharing the links. The persistence of these changes over time is amazing...
\"Probably the airplanes will bring week-enders from Los Angeles before long, and the beautiful poor bedraggled old town will bloom with a
Floridian ugliness.\" (John Steinbeck, 1940, discussing the future of La Paz, BCS, Mexico)
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bajaguy
Elite Nomad
Posts: 9247
Registered: 9-16-2003
Location: Carson City, NV/Ensenada - Baja Country Club
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Mood: must be 5 O'clock somewhere in Baja
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Walk it
David, I'm sure you have mentioned this before, but has anybody recently (within the last 20 years) walked and documented the entire ECR in Baja??
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David K
Honored Nomad
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Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
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Mood: Have Baja Fever
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| Quote: | Originally posted by bajaguy
David, I'm sure you have mentioned this before, but has anybody recently (within the last 20 years) walked and documented the entire ECR in Baja??
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No, at least not made it public that I know of. One Nomad has been riding much of ECR since 2001.
Graham has walked some parts in the late 1990's... But, the primary mode of transportation is mule.
We have a Nomad who has covered much of the ECR by mule (and other mission side roads)... and she is 'Baja Bucko'.
'Mula' and Mike Younghusband have also been on parts of the mission road.
I have walked just a little of it... near Gonzaga Bay:
... and near El Rosario:
Harry Crosby has done the most to describe what the old trail is like in his 1974 book...
The first detailed account of much of the mission road was from a trip in 1906 by Arthur North...
Then there is the popular 1933 novel of life along El Camino Real (set about 1800) in The Journey of the Flame... map inside the book cover...
I have had a preview of an upcoming trip report by a Nomad from Mexicali who (with others) tried to walk up to Mission Santa María from Gonzaga Bay on
ECR (as did I in 2003)... So stand by for that report from Emerson.
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bajacalifornian
Super Nomad
Posts: 1117
Registered: 9-4-2010
Location: Loreto/Lopez Mateos/Rosarito
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Hey D.K.,
Just chased down some posts made a "Long Time" ago.
You had a billion stars then & people were still arguing about you.
Way to go!
Damn if Gypsy Jan, Paulina & a bunch of others were there as well.
American by birth, Mexican by choice.
Signature addendum: Danish physicist — Niels Bohr — who said, “The opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.
Jeff Petersen
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64829
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
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Mood: Have Baja Fever
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Hi Jeff, there are a group of us Nomad regulars that go back to the Amigos de Baja days and before me, too... I got a computer and discovered Baja on
the Internet about 1997 or 1998 I think? By May of 1999, I had met Baja Mur and he and I went to Mission Santa Maria! That trip was the first web page
I made for the future Viva Baja web site: http://www.vivabaja.com/missionsm/index.html
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bajaguy
Elite Nomad
Posts: 9247
Registered: 9-16-2003
Location: Carson City, NV/Ensenada - Baja Country Club
Member Is Offline
Mood: must be 5 O'clock somewhere in Baja
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The ECR
Looks like a book in the making. Hiking the ECR and staying at old mission sites.
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64829
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
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Mood: Have Baja Fever
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| Quote: | Originally posted by bajaguy
Looks like a book in the making. Hiking the ECR and staying at old mission sites. |
I am game! Sponsors welcome!  
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64829
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
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Bump for Mando
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sargentodiaz
Nomad
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Registered: 2-20-2013
Location: Las Vegas, NV
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As I posted on another forum, I just read where the Jesuits made a great effort to try to make el Camino Real as direct between the missions as
possible. But, the terrain seems to be totally against that.
Father Baegert didn't even both to try to measure the distance in leagues/miles and did all of them in the hours it took by horse/mule.
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64829
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
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| Quote: | Originally posted by sargentodiaz
As I posted on another forum, I just read where the Jesuits made a great effort to try to make el Camino Real as direct between the missions as
possible. But, the terrain seems to be totally against that.
Father Baegert didn't even both to try to measure the distance in leagues/miles and did all of them in the hours it took by horse/mule.
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They were great road engineers, the Jesuits... or some of them anyway. The El Camino Real did run straight as an arrow everywhere the terrain
allowed... then they had switchbacks built when they came to a mountain slope or canyon.
There were often parallel Jesuit roads, used at different times of year to to reach different visiting stations of the missions...
Google Earth makes finding the roads built in the 1700's fun.
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