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Ken Cooke
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el imposible trip report 4/4 (Mission Santa Maria/Laguna Chapala 2019/Cocos Corner?/San Felipe)
el imposible: Mission Santa María (a.k.a. “Mission Impossible”)
Last night, our group and I figured it would not be possible. Steady rains fell all through the desert from about 3 pm the day before until dawn.
Our goal would be a modest one - go take a look at the trail. Perhaps drive to the peninsular divide then turn around.
By 11:30 am, our vehicles had paid the roughly $5/vehicle fee which has become the common donation amount in Baja, California when one wishes to
access exclusive network of dirt trails that crisscross this undeveloped region the way that the interstate system crosses the Los Angeles area.
The Mission Santa Maria trail is a box canyon trail of sorts as it ends at a junction where the El Camino Real bisects the Mission trail, but requires
the driver to exit their vehicle and continue on foot. Our goal was to drive in and immediately out of this trail, so the Camino Real held little
tangible significance. An open gate leading to this magnificent region is passed and you must first pick your way through a Sandy wash and then up
above the general vicinity and across two or three valleys each with their own steep valleys, all lined with rocks.
Once one continues roughly one hour, an off camber shelf road gets you right into the very rough stuff before backing off, providing more mild trails.
The Mission Santa Maria trail doesn't reveal herself until much later. There, loose, steep hill limbs give way to relatively easy stretches before
the trail becomes more off camber. The hill climbs become more steep. Everything here changes for the better, or for the worse - depending on how you
and your vehicle interpret what is good versus bad. Before you know it, you're committed to the Mission trail, and you're in it until you reach the
swamp. The swamp is not a political metaphor, rather a stagnant zone of palm trees and a two track path which meanders in a zig zag pattern from the
base of the steep, rocky “Widowmaker” hill on one end and a spectacular row of palm trees - some with rare, blue palm fronds.
Once past the swamp, a series of short but steep rocky hills must first climbed over before reaching the Mission Santa Maria. Actually, the Mission
consists of a foundation and adobe walls which were erected in the late 1700’s and utilized as a Mission warehouse by the Jesuit order for several
decades.
Our Jeeps and Toyota handled both the swamp and the rocky path leading to the Mission quite well, although the Toyota had developed a peculiar stance
that more than one driver noticed. Victor “Ru KinKon”s vehicle was grounded - stuck in the lot of the Mision Santa Maria Hotel parking lot with a
failed cooling system. He got to drive one of the Jeeps, but he mainly had to ride with his wife in the backseat of the long distance, Canadian 4
door Rubicon. Victor asked David why the rear wheels appeared off square? The explanation was that, with this being a replacement to the original
rear axle housing that suffered the same fate, this second replacement axle housing was also bent. A Rock Jock Dana 60 was on order and would likely
be replaced by the time you have read this. David's rear axle housing appeared bent, and squeaked continuously - likely because of the amount of
stress placed on axle bearings being ran at a noncongruent angle.
The entire trip lasted 6 hours from start to finish. Near the end of our run, David noticed that Rich T's rear shock was no longer connected to his
Jeeps lower shock mount - due to the mount failing on the trail. We had to stop for 25 minutes while this shock and it's mount were removed for a
full repair in San Felipe.
Back at the Hotel, all four drivers and our passengers celebrated over dinner and a bottle of 'el imposible’ wine - produced by Victor himself! We
toasted to a weeklong series of all moderate to most difficult trails that were all successfully completed. The impossible is now one for the record
books.
[Edited on 2-23-2019 by Ken Cooke]
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David K
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I can't wait for the photos!
So, who collects money... someone at Santa Ynez came out and walked to you guys or was the left gate closed and you walked to them?
Did you see Ralph? Maybe you can drive to Ralph's place and then up the wash to the mission road and not go through the ranch gate?
If you don't like the word swamp, use what we have always called it: The Bog.
Were they collecting money to get to Laguna Salada or with the rains, did everyone go to the graded road?
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Ken Cooke
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Quote: Originally posted by David K  | I can't wait for the photos!
So, who collects money... someone at Santa Ynez came out and walked to you guys or was the left gate closed and you walked to them?
Did you see Ralph? Maybe you can drive to Ralph's place and then up the wash to the mission road and not go through the ranch gate?
If you don't like the word swamp, use what we have always called it: The Bog.
Were they collecting money to get to Laguna Salada or with the rains, did everyone go to the graded road? |
Mayra from Rancho Santa Ines collected money at her kitchen.
We also paid roughly $5 to access the roads into the Laguna Salada área. This is becoming more customary. I'm sure these fees keep the losers out.
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advrider
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Ken you are a gifted writer for sure! They collected money from us at Santa Inez last year, they said to maintain the road? It was cheap, we paid...
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David K
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So, the second gate, left of the restaurant is locked now?
Maintain the road? LOL, that was last done in 1973!
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advrider
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The gate wasn't locked, they had someone drive down and park by the gate, kind of blocking it. They were nice about it but acted as if we could not
pass the gate without paying? If the money does help to keep the road open I don't mind donating a few dollars. My Spanish isn't that good but they
had cold beer for sale when we came back from our ride.
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Ken Cooke
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El imposible: End of run (back to San Felipe)
On Saturday 2/23, our group departed in its respective directions with Victor and David driving north along Hwy 1, while Richard, Ken and Daryl went
south to the Hwy 5 turnoff. While Richard drove directly to San Felipe without stopping, Daryl and I chose to first stop at Cocos Corner for a brief
visit with the legend.
Cocos Corner has undergone changes since the last time I had visited almost a decade ago. Gone was the wooden backyard awning where so many underwear
and memories had been posted. Instead, Coco's house with many of the adornments were placed inside served as his base of beverage sales. Coco
announced to us that he is now 82 years old and very much alive when I told him of a rumor that he had recently passed away. Coco asked us to sign
his guest book before leaving and we took several photographs with the Baja icon. With the patchwork of road construction projects leading to and
around his property, I can see why he chose to remain off of the main highway now under construction. His legion of friends and visitors would likely
disapprove of a new location after the indellible print he has left on “El Valle de Coco.”
Our next stop was at the upscale Alfonsinas. Complete with a new guard post and a third floor of guest housing, Alfonsinas leaves visitors either
loving or hating it. Gone is the ability to drive out to the peninsula just past the ever growing collection of guest rooms as signs posted that
driving on the sand is now prohibited. This appears to allow the justification in charging the now $100/night accomodation fees and more than $20 per
plate for dinner - although with some of the best ceviche I have tasted from Los Angeles to Lima, Peru where the first ceviche dish was invented.
Traveling north into San Felipe, a brilliant display of desert wildflowers was now underway. The ground was literally carpeted in guess of cream and
violet along stretches that normally appeared void of much life. Ocotillo were green from recent rains as if they were dutifuly tended to by
residents of the South Campo. I stopped and parked for photographs of this remarkable Superbloom which is gradually creeping north and will take hold
of the California norte deserts within the next few weeks.
el imposible is now a memory. Like a Baja racecourse, so many trails were stitched together to be completed within a relatively short length of time.
The memories, photographs and tshirts will now tell the story of one of Bajas greatest 4WD events of the 21st century.
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mcnut
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Thanks for taking us along, sound like a memorable adventure!
Bruce
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David K
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Wonderful Ken, just wonderful!
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6WHEELN
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David K
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Please type in your Fox Shock story!
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6WHEELN
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That’s Rich T holding up a trophy specimen of the elusive Mission Santa Maria Fox. 🦊
The rear lower shock mount broke.
https://youtu.be/Um_ku0JM1KY
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David K
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Still hoping for more details on the road from Ken and others, plus photos...
Since I am into the mission history and Ken is in education, I think I am compelled to add to this line from Ken:
"Once past the swamp, a series of short but steep rocky hills must first climbed over before reaching the Mission Santa Maria. Actually, the
Mission consists of a foundation and adobe walls which were erected in the late 1700’s and utilized as a Mission warehouse by the Jesuit order for
several decades."
Details in my book...
The Jesuits were at Santa María for less than a year (May 1767 to Jan. 1768) and had only erected palm log cabins when they were forced back to
Europe.
In April 1768, the Franciscan friars arrived in Loreto to replace the already departed Jesuits. Padre Juan de Medina Beitia was assigned to Santa
María, the most distant mission from Loreto, arriving there some weeks later. It was the Franciscan, Beitia, who had the adobe church and side
building erected at Santa María between May 1768 and when he left in April 1769. The Franciscans at Mission San Borja would travel to Santa María to
see to its needs.
Junípero Serra, on his journey from Loreto to San Diego, arrived at Santa María in May 1769 and spent a week there planning a future for this
isolated mission. This changed when he moved on to Velicatá and founded his first California mission of San Fernando, there. He considered San
Fernando de Velicatá a far superior location and pretty much abandoned the plans he had for Santa María.
When the Franciscans handed off their Baja missions to the Dominicans in May 1773 in order to concentrate on Alta California, the Dominicans had not
assigned priests to only Santa María, but that the two assigned to San Fernando would also attend Santa María.
1774 was the final year that saw mission population records recorded for Santa María, as by 1775, the native population that could relocate, did so,
to San Fernando.
So, Santa María was active as a mission site for only a few years and less than one decade.
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Ken Cooke
Elite Nomad
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I imported seventy photos from Google Photos to Imgur. Photobucket is back to it's old pricing tactics. Posting photos to this site is time
intensive. Maybe this weekend I will be caught up and I will have time to post photos. The road hasn't changed since the last time I was on the
Mission Santa Maria route in 2011.
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David K
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Ken, www.postimages.org, set the upload size to 800 or 640 to fit on Nomad, and you can make albums for each trip. Best part, it's free. Use the link
for forums (has tags like this [img]).
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PaulW
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Ken, FYI, Some future suggestions
Use a camera with a resolution setting that meets the 250kb requirement for Nomads.
For screen shots use Paint to resize. Slow
For my phone I have not figured out how to limit size to 250 So I have to resize on paint to 25%. Slow
And yes Postimages works fine, but one has to do it one at a time.
I never use Photobucket any more.
Obviously the 250k setting camera is a no brainer for speed and quantity. A low cost point and shoot camera will suffice. And for high resolution
pictures I always have my phone at the ready.
For all my devices I have a large memory so keeping them in the device is not an issue. Sure beats keeping them on an application.
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David K
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The 250 kb limit is only if Nomad hosts the photo and that is a lower quality setting. Hosting on another website allows the quality to remain high,
just size the the image on the screen to fit here.
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PaulW
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Can we compare the real difference?
Why not post two images. Same pic one from Postimage and one you resize to 250k
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David K
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How (what method) do you want me to shrink the file size down to 250 kb?
With Photobucket or Postimages.org, you just select the upload size once, and all your future photo selections are sized for the Internet (and your
original full-size images are untouched on your PC).
I get the complaint about Photobucket, but it is still working for me, TW, and many others... Postimages.org is very easy and free, so-far.
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6WHEELN
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From The Bog to The Mission:
https://youtu.be/UfSZ0fdWxj0
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