BajaNomad - mud bogs in Baja

mud bogs in Baja

edm1 - 7-26-2007 at 07:22 AM

I'd like to hear mud bog experiences or sightings/locations in Baja.

Thanks,
Art

[Edited on 7-26-2007 by edm1]

CaboRon - 7-26-2007 at 07:28 AM

And I would like to see the pictures of the vehicles in the mud ....... :lol:

CaboRon

Bob and Susan - 7-26-2007 at 08:33 AM

and it was muddy :lol:

CaboRon - 7-26-2007 at 08:39 AM

Bob and Susan, Outstanding photo , but I'm sure it was no fun at the time. Was this from "John" last October ? CaboRon

Bob and Susan - 7-26-2007 at 08:44 AM

no just diggin...

the boys from the edijo all came over and hauled it out...
it weighs 35,000 pounds...its no toyota :lol:

washed up and working the next day...

same thing happened later but no problems...

(sh--) stuff happens...it WAS muddy

Bob and Susan - 7-26-2007 at 08:49 AM

they had 4 water pumps pumping out the water

and dumped dry dirt all around and the driver "walked it out"

amazing what these things and people can do...

wilderone - 7-26-2007 at 09:40 AM

There is a famous mud bog en route to Malarrimo Beach.

Iflyfish - 7-26-2007 at 09:48 AM

Opera........

Good one!

Iflyfish

Mexitron - 7-26-2007 at 10:27 AM

We were surfing at Shipwrecks near Colonet years ago and this guy is on the bluff waving his arms and yelling for help...so we get out of the water to see his problem is--turns out he tried to drive across the muddy salt flat estruary around the point--he thought it was like Bonneville so he took a running start at it! He made it halfway across and got stuck well in over the axles...it took an hour of digging in that muck and my Ford Ranger, my brother's F-150, and my friend's Izuzu all tied together to yank him out...his truck tweeked so bad that the windshield popped out! But he was able to drive home...

Diver - 7-26-2007 at 10:58 AM

We got to El Requeson and settled in when some folks that we have met in San Quinton came into camp. They told of their night-time search for a spot to camp near the whale lagoon.....
Recognize that dock ? I know where he was !

You can see the cable hooked to the tow truck they brought from GN to pull him out.
Shari, does the guy in the yellow jacket look familiar ??

[Edited on 7-26-2007 by Diver]

stuck 1.JPG - 44kB

baitcast - 7-26-2007 at 11:19 AM

While camped in the San Quintin back bay sitting around rehashing the days fishing I look up and comes a guy with a pained look on his face and says "I need help bad I,m stuck on a mud flat and the tide is coming in please" so we jumed in my old W200 a potent truck in its day.

Sure enough there he was stuck up to his gunnels out on this mud flat :?:

and the tide was coming in big time.

He had one of those flat nosed jeep pick-ups and a small camper,we pulled out the cable from his winch pinned it on my step bumper gave it a pull all I did was bury myself,go to plan B I gave him a shovel and told him he better start digging well he dug for a while, the winch lets try that, I set the brakes and he started winching BAM,my bud yells stop I get only to find my bumper bolts broke :no:

I thought he was going to have a nice cry,I happen to have a couple bolts that fit just right,more digging now the water is inches away from his rig and his wife is making a big racket what are we going to do she yells,well lets try MARY ANN again so named by my girls

Well this time MARY ANN got the job done :biggrin:

An it was beers all round with happy faces :biggrin:

TacoFeliz - 7-26-2007 at 01:16 PM

An error in judgement years ago at Malarimo.

:lol:

Neal Johns - 7-26-2007 at 02:43 PM

TacoFeliz was driving close to pull his friend out. No good deed goes unpunished! :lol:

Neal Johns - 7-26-2007 at 02:50 PM

Friend an hour or two later......

Malarrimo3 [800x600].jpg - 49kB

Neal Johns - 7-26-2007 at 03:04 PM

No pics for this old story, sorry.

Baja's Shell Island Adventure (1980)

I had discovered the remote Baja beach (now named Shell Island by David K) poking around the area the year before in my Land Cruiser. The two-track off the old road between San Felipe and Puertecitos had looked inviting, so I took it. My religion is simple, if you pass a desert side road without taking it, God will get you! After a few miles, we (my girlfriend and I) arrived on the edge of a muddy lagoon separating some sand dunes from the mainland.

We had lunch while we tried to decide whether to drive through the mud or not. We could see that the two-track continued but my chicken blood was running into my brain. Just then a Jeep passed us with a smirk, and drove on through to the dunes. That was it! No darn Jeep can show up a Land Cruiser! We crossed with no problems even if our Tru-Traks (remember TruTraks? The BFG’s of yesteryear) clogged up.
Surprise! There was a pristine beach on the other side of the dunes with no one in sight except way down south. Hundreds of shells littered the beach and we had lots of time to look at them because for every revolution of the tires, we moved forward about two feet. Airing down the tire pressure helped but there was still a lot of slippage. After camping the night, we went on to other things.

Move the clock up a year and I am poking around Baja with two buddies, one with a Jeep CJ-5 and the other in another Land Cruiser. Nightfall approached and I declared "I know a great place to camp!". It took us a while to get there and it was dark with no moon. The lagoon was full and the two-track disappeared under the water. Said I: " No problem, I have been here before and if you stay on the track, there won't be any problem, just follow me". That's when things started to go terribly wrong.

I took off in low range with the two guys behind me and things went OK until the unseen underwater "road" bent right, and I didn't. I started to bog down and screamed the infamous words "Pass me on the right!" just before I got stuck. The Jeep did so and went two more car lengths before he got stuck. We heard on the CB the other Land Cruiser say he was stopping.

There was a loud silence before they started cursing at me. The other Land Cruiser was stuck also. The Jeep had a winch on the front bumper which was of little use because we were behind him. I had a small portable winch which we hooked up to his trailer hitch on the Jeep to pull him backwards a ways. As the winch owner, they let me stand in the foot of brackish water and operate the controls. What could go wrong, it was only 12 volts?

My screams told the others that the kickback voltage from the motor windings was more that 12 volts and that experiment quickly ended. Next, we broke out the Hi-Lift jacks and pushed some large jack boards down into the mud without moving the Land Cruiser upward. By that time it was midnight and we decided to sleep in the vehicles until daylight. They didn't sleep too well because they thought the rising tide would bury them alive. A few crabs in the water and mud did little to calm their fears.

The next day’s vista was very informative. If we had continued straight the way we were going, we would have been in the really big unseen mud flat on the edge of the dunes which was much worse that where we were. Guess we missed that right turn. We fooled around some more with the Hi-Lifts to no avail and then turned our efforts to the Land Cruiser closest to the mainland. By burying the spare tire in the mud and using a come-along puller, we got him out about noon.

We drove back to San Felipe and tried to hire the large wheeled war-surplus boat launching vehicles to come and pull us out. No luck, they had to remain there to pull the boats out. We then had to decide which would be better, a 400 foot rope, or some planks to serve as railroad tracks. Eight foot long, two inch by twelve inch planks were decided upon and we went to the lumberyard on the main drag. They sawed them to length by hand and we loaded six of them on the Land Cruiser fenders/running boards.

Back at the lagoon in the late afternoon, we set to work getting the Jeep out. For some reason, they vetoed getting my vehicle out first. We pounded nails into the boards and bent them over to give more traction to the soon to be muddy "railroad tracks" and started to work. Using the boards as giant jack boards for the Hi-Lift, we managed to get the wheels started up on four "tracks" and laid two more boards behind them. The plan was to go like heck backwards until the Jeep ran out of track and then pray.

We must not have prayed to the right Gods because as soon as the Jeep got off the boards it would go only about 50 feet, and had no steering control whatever. Oh well, only 350 feet to go. The boards that we could manhandle and lift so easily early on, took on a life of their own toward the second midnight. The suction from the mud on a heavy eight foot by 12 inch board was all we could overcome toward the end. We got the Jeep out at midnight and my former friends camped on the warm, dry, sand and informed me that "if" they were around the next morning, "maybe" they would help me out.

The next morning, the water had gone down a little and we started on my Land Cruiser. Around dark, we and our aching backs had it almost out so we quit and they again camped in tents on the sand while I spent another night in the Land Cruiser. The next day after a little more work, we all headed for San Felipe. We checked into Ruben's Camp where we proceeded to wash off the six inches of mud onto the gravel driveway. We got a few funny looks, but it was a rustic campo at that time so we got away with it. When queried as to where we got the mud, we just shook our head and said "south". A few months later, my former friends presented me with a tee shirt that said "Pass me on the right!"

Rumor has it that there is a “sort-of” causeway there now.

bajalou - 7-26-2007 at 03:06 PM

Almost every time a full moon falls on a weekend in San Felipe 1 to 5 vehicles get to be submarines. The sand looks so great - smooth - nice, so lets run the flats. All of sudden there's a mud spot that just looks a little darker brown and whooops you're in it. Sink about 16-24 in. And your 4WD might move you back and forth a little but sure not out of it.

One time I was on the beach near Playa del Sol and a Bronco running the beach happily splashing in the small puddles. I came back a little later and he was stuck. Pushed and pulled with a bunch of other spectators as the tide rose. Finally we helped unload the family's camping gear and bags when the water was coming in the doors and I took him to look for someone to try to get him out. (I had less Spanish those days and he had almost no English). Took him to see friends who weren't home, some guys who pull out the fishing panga at the Malecon, and finally ended up at the Fire Chief's house. He talked to someone Mickey, the chief then told me He was OK. I went back to the beach the next morning and they had gotten a large truck with a big winch to tug him out. He had been working on it for a couple hours but had it running when I got there. The water had been almost to the roof before they got it out.

4-5 years ago, someone got stuck in a similar manner in front of El Dorado. A El Dorado employee decided to help and got a backhoe and went down to pull him out. The backhoe got stuck just as bad and both went under for the night. Then more tractors with cables finally got them out.

With the 20+ feet of tide change, you don't have much time to get the help you have to have to get out.

BajaWarrior - 7-26-2007 at 03:20 PM

The causeway is like a sucker punch. If you follow it to the defunkt wanna-be bridge that never materialized, you'll drop your front wheels into a trench that was dug years ago that crosses the elevated road. We've put tires in it and tried to replace the sand in it but it has lost it's hard pack and re-appears.

Take the low road to the right of the "causeway" and if the tracks are covered by water prior to entering the beach, don't go in. You'll have to wait another trip when the tides are lower. Next hazard will be the thick sand as you enter the beach.

We easily cross the beach in a 88' Toyota 4x4 with 5 pounds of air in the 33" tires. And also an 85' Bronco ll running 7 pounds on 30" tires. These trucks live there so they are always aired down, but we air up a bit for the desert runs.

We go out there each trip we're at our home, two miles south, great beach.

2000 and Neal John's flats

bajalou - 7-26-2007 at 03:23 PM

Four of us tried crossing the flats Neal Johns mentioned earlier, heading from Percebu to Santa Maria. We had done this many times but never when the mud was damp.

Took a while but we finally got out.

edm1 - 7-26-2007 at 03:38 PM

Neal, great photos and great mudbog stories. I could still feel the anxiety and adrenaline from my last trip as I read your story.

I'm very many months away from seeing Malarrimo / Requeson / Baja Sur. There's so much more to explore in Baja Norte first.

BajaWarrior, I'm so glad I chickened out crossing that mud creek at 7:30PM a few weeks ago or Neals story could have happened to me. I'm scared of mud. I'm not having my heavy rig cross that path unless I have a companion vehicle or early in the morning and with sand/mud ladders. I did get stuck in the sand in the other branching trail (in Shell Island) but was able to get out and turn around before it got dark.

[Edited on 7-26-2007 by edm1]

edm1 - 7-26-2007 at 03:40 PM

Bajalou, THAT PLACE looks familiar!!! That was my "unplanned" second campsite two weks ago.

bajalou - 7-26-2007 at 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by edm1
Bajalou, THAT PLACE looks familiar!!! That was my "unplanned" second campsite two weks ago.

When we talked I figured you were somewhere in this vicinity.

Ken Cooke - 7-26-2007 at 06:24 PM

Here is my Jeep with clogged TrXus MT tires attempting to cross the lower muddy lagoon leading to the beach below Shell Island...

The tires turned into doughnuts & you couldn't spin the Baja goo off of these tires...

I was finally able to drive out under my own power w/the help of my front & rear locking differentials. The '07 Rubicon in the background was there merely for 'show'. :lol:

Ken Cooke - 7-26-2007 at 06:27 PM

Here is a real closeup photo of the goo that clinged to my TrXus MT tires...

I later decided to play closer to the sand in the really slick stuff. Andrew had to pull me out with the aid of his pickup truck...

[Edited on 7-27-2007 by Ken Cooke]

viabaja - 7-27-2007 at 11:15 AM

I'm looking at all these pix and I'm very familiar with access to that beach. Why in the world did you not stay on the beaten path off to the right? Even when moderately wet, it's accessable only if you stay on the packed tracks. Best way to get in, even with water, is further south with old original access point. The point is for everyone reading these posts is, do not for any reason deviate from the well traveled sections.

Ken Cooke - 7-27-2007 at 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by viabaja
Why in the world did you not stay on the beaten path off to the right?

Because, staying on the beaten path would have led me to the Nordstroms in Irvine instead of Shell Island down in Baja! :lol:

TacoFeliz - 7-27-2007 at 01:55 PM

Those are some ugly looking tires Ken

Ken Cooke - 7-27-2007 at 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by TacoFeliz
Those are some ugly looking tires Ken

There can be beauty in ugliness! :spingrin:

viabaja - 7-30-2007 at 12:41 PM

Ken, touche!!

David K - 7-30-2007 at 01:14 PM

Viabaja... I am thinking the same thing! You can access Shell Island even when the road is underwater IF you stay on the beaten track... The mud is so compacted that even with high tide covering it, you will not sink.

However... wander just a few inches off the worn path and the mud turns into soggy oatmeal...

You guys better not try and go there, afterall!!! :light:

That bridge at the end of the causeway is finished... I used to drive over it getting onto the island. What happened was the elevated causeway began to melt back down to the mud flats and the concrete bridge naturally stayed at the same elevation... Now the road (causeway) is about 2 feet lower than the bridge.

Surfer Jim at the bridge 3 1/2 years ago...

[Edited on 7-30-2007 by David K]

Ken Cooke - 7-30-2007 at 02:13 PM

Let Surfer Jim know, our Jeeps won't need a stinkin' bridge to reach Shell Island. Heck, we'll do it in 2WD in our Jeeps! Mud or no mud, we can make it!!

Don't worry guys, we'll help ya'll through...

Sharksbaja - 7-30-2007 at 03:23 PM

That guy is a surfer?

Frigatebird - 7-30-2007 at 05:50 PM

All-play-and-no-work mud bog. 15 miles NE of El Arco 7/26/07. Plenty of horse sense to avoid getting stuck.

IMG_1732.JPG - 49kB

4baja - 7-31-2007 at 06:32 AM

dave, they call it mexican asphalt.

viabaja - 8-1-2007 at 01:02 PM

From the past. RV on Shell Island & freak wind/tide at beach access.

windgrrl - 8-1-2007 at 04:39 PM

You can buy a latte and watch the bog parade all day here... :lol:

[email=null]...RVs, RVs with trailers, buses, tractors, trucks, vans, mini-vehicles, motorcycles, bicycles, horses, pedestrians...

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n214/jgyorkos/PICT0212.jp...