Where is that old Baja road, you ask? (re-post)

For the interest of new Nomads (and old), here is an article on more recent Baja history I first posted in 2003:

posted on 12-13-2003 at 06:48 PM

Where is that old Baja road, you ask?



I am refering to the pre-December, 1973 Baja main road. Everything changed after December 1973 as far as Baja travel and number of visitors.

I was just a kid when my folks and I drove to the tip in 1966 in our Jeep Wagoneer. But, I was already infected with Baja Fever and my favorite book was Gerhard & Gulick's LOWER CALIFORNIA GUIDEBOOK (The Baja Bible).

We went to Gonzaga Bay the year before (1965) and to L.A. Bay the following year (1967). The next trip down to Baja Sur (to Loreto) was in July, 1973.

The highway was under construction in mid '73 and I took many notes and mileages as to its location compared with the old road.

That July, pavement ended at the Mision San Fernando junction (near El Progreso) and didn't start again until near Punta Prieta (in sections), with solid pavement starting about Villa Jesus Maria. We were on the old Baja main road from Agua Dulce (10 miles beyond San Agustin) to almost Laguna Chapala. We didn't know so much of the old road would be driven from the reports we heard. The trip was made in our (2WD) Ford LTD station wagon!

The old road locator:

Just east of where the highway crosses Arroyo El Rosario (headindg south) is where the old road left the valley using a side canyon. The new road stays above that canyon, just to the west.

The old road crosses the new and parallels it to the south, Rancho Aguajito and the turquoise mines are along it, below and south of the new highway.

El Progreso was moved north a half mile to the highway from the old road.

The road left to Rancho Penjamo is along the old road, as is Aguila and Guayaquil. The highway stays 1-2 miles to the west or southwest of the old road until 2 miles from Cataviña.

The abandoned Pemex and trailer park 'San Agustin' is south of the original San Agustin, on the old road, as is Cafe Sonora a couple miles ahead.

Agua Dulce is off the old road, a couple miles to the left of Km. 157-159. The old road stays about 1-2 miles east/left of the highway in the La Virgen boulder area. The old road rejoins the highway just before the ruined palapa by the rock art cave, 2 miles before Catavina.

The highway is next to the old road past San Martin and over to the first little dry lake. At the Pedregroso boulder mountain, the old road went around the west side, whereas the new highway goes around the east side.

At the first sight of the Laguna Chapala valley, the old road continued straight towards the old ranch site, along a little hill just north of the dry lake bed. This section before the ranch was perhaps the worst in all of the Baja road... deep, fine powder Baja dust that would cover your vehicle completely. You would drive blind after fixing onto the trees by Rancho Chapala and hoping for the best! Then, after the ranch, you got to open it up and drive 60 mph on the dry lake to blow a lot of that dust off. That best of the old road only lasted a couple miles, however. That Chapala dust would stay with the Jeep for many car washes over the following years!

The new highway stays to the right of the dust field, along the hill, and to the right (west) of the dry lake. Rancho Chapala moved to the highway and was renamed Nuevo Chapala. The new Chapala to Puerto Calamajue (then on to Gonzaga and San Felipe) road was built from from about 1982-87. Coco started his corner after that first section was built.

Both old and new roads come together where you leave the Chapala valley and see that beautiful view of the desert and mountains to the south.

Beyond El Crucero (where the road turns from southeast to south at the base of a hill) both roads are together. In a few miles the old road goes off to the right (west) of the new and parallels it to Punta Prieta.

At Rosarito, the new highway swings west down the arroyo a couple miles then turns south to Guerrero Negro. The old main road went straight south from Rosarito and eventually went to the center of the peninsula at El Arco. Some truckers running supplies to the new town of Guerrero Negro went along the 'coast route', then took desert trails on to San Ignacio. The new highway does the same, passing near Guerrero Negro then swinging to the southeast for San Ignacio. The old road coming south from El Arco joins the new near Vizcaino (a new town started around 1972, about the time of new highway constructing here).

Vizcaino to San Ignacio finds both routes near each other. San Ignacio to Mulege, the same. First the old road is on the east side of the highway, then on the west and south side as the highway curves towards San Ignacio.

Along Bahia Concepcion, the old road can be seen in the cliff, right above the water in many places. This was built and maintained by the prisioners of the old territorial prison in Mulege (closed after the highway was built ending the isolation).

Just south of Bahia Concepcion, the old main road went inland via Comondu where today's highway goes south through Loreto. Both rejoin at Insurgentes. Travelers to Loreto could get to La Paz by driving to San Javier and then on to Santo Domingo on the main road. The road south of Loreto ended at Ligui.

Pavement in '66 began about 100 miles north of La Paz and ended again, about 10 miles south of La Paz. They were building the new road and we drove on it (unpaved) until past San Bartolo. It was just a two track jeep trail from there to Cabo San Lucas! The new highway stays to the east of Santiago and Miraflores, where the old road naturally went right through these pretty villages...

I hope some of you find this a bit interesting... thank you for allowing me to share from my childhood memories and later observations!

One of the maps from the Lower California Guidebook:



Here are the 'new' (since 1962) major roads/ highways added:






See the newest set of images showing the old road location, starting here: http://forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=48770

[Edited on 10-30-2010 by David K]

Thanks So Much!!!

YES! Arturo Grosso, brother of 'Mama' Anita Espinoza established that ranch... an important stop in the old pre-pavement Baja days!

Approaching Rancho Chapala from the north (see it in the distance), the worst part of the peninsula drive was this dust bowl of silt you had to drive through!:
1965:


Grosso's ranch house:
1955:


The best part of the peninsula drive was the dry lake bed.. after traveling at 15 mph for hundreds of miles, you could open it up and blow off some of the dust!
1956:


The above photos from Howard Gulick, The Lower California Guidebook author. All the photos: http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/baja/gulick/ (this link is also on my web page)

Old Road Map

New since 1960's roads added (paved: heavy lines, graded: light lines)


[Edited on 2-21-2009 by David K]

Here's the main Baja highway in the 1960's at Bahia Concepcion... at high tide!



Photo from Mike McMahan

Here is perhaps the same place 40 years later... now used to get to a beach camp...

That Old Baja road

Yah, I like that book a lot! When they did their walk (in 1921), automobiles were pretty rare and any roads went between active mine camps... Agua Leon and Leon Grande are both west and north of Punta Prieta... The main road avoided them as it went between Laguna Chapala and Punta Prieta. Agua Leon was a spring and Leon Grande was the mine camp... both named in the book.

See them on this 1930 map:



On this 1941 auto. map of Baja, you can see Leon Grande and San Julio (on the coast, west of Chapala):



On the 1930 map there is a San Julio Ranch south-west of Catavña and a San Julio on the coast. The ranch is also near the Las Palmas mentioned in the book!

LOL, I have done the very same!

Nature and erosion are fading away the old road in the places it isn't still used. Here's a photo I took of it last summer, south of El Arco/ north of San Ignacio:

posted on 2-21-2009 at 01:12 PM

While Howard Gulick (Lower California Guidebook) made the most accurate maps showing the old road in Baja, it was Cliff Cross who drew the most 'fun to look at' maps, for his 1970 Baja Guide... a bird's eye view of Baja:









Since he drew them as he saw it, they are pretty good views of Baja in the late 1960's.

The only mistakes I can think of above is the Agua Dulce spring on the wrong side of the road and the Calamajue mission location (shown where the mill ruins are, he later corrected that in an update note) on the opposite side of the arroyo.

Old Rancho Laguna Chapala de Arturo Grosso

Now looking from Hwy. 1:



Up close: