Baja 709-7: DAY 7 (AM) Magdalena Mission Visita Ruins

DAY 7 (Friday, July 24, 2009)

Continued from 709-6 at: http://forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=40426

This is the part of my trip report the off road and adventure loving Baja Nomads will like!




The night was very warm and humid so sleeping wasn’t easy. In the morning, when it seemed more cool and comfortable to sleep in, an arriving fisherman with his car stereo cranked way up with Norteño (folk) music, ended that idea.



Well, at least I could get one sunrise photo taken on this vacation!





Elizabeth and I packed up the gear and took a final swim in our formerly tranquil bay before heading north.

We left La Perla at 9:10 am and stopped at the Mulege entrance road ice shop for a bag of ice (14 pesos). I zeroed the trip odometer at the Mulege entrance on Highway One… We were soon to take an off road discovery trip to get photos of a controversial mission-era site, called Santa Maria Magdalena on most maps.

0.0 Mulege

9.4 Road to Santa Ines (Inez)

12.7 Palo Verde village

12.9 Road east signed to San Borjita (painted cave site). We turn east and reset odometer to 0.0.

This road has interesting kilometer markers on the cactus.





Just past Km. 7:

4.3 Rancho El Perdido on the left. The road described by Dave Werschkul ('Saints and Demons in a Desert Wilderness') through the trees and across the big arroyo is gone. We continue a half mile past the ranch in the Arroyo El Perdido looking for a road to the north, but fail and drive back to the ranch.

I talk to the rancher and tell him I am trying to get to ‘Boca de Magdalena’, which was the name of the village near the ruins. He tells me the better road is to the north at the base of a mountain he points out a few miles north (Cerro Atravesado). However, I assure him my Toyota is 'muy fuerte' and was seeking the road from this place. He told me if I continue towards San Borjita, in about 200 meters I will see faint tracks going across the rocky arroyo.

0.0 I reset the odometer at the ranch.

0.2 We found the track… it was very faint going right from the road. Then, near the far side, the track makes a turn right and soon leaves the rocky arroyo.



The road is overgrown from lack of use. This is the route of the Mulege to San Ignacio 'El Camino Real', and I am a happy man!



1.8 Grave on the right GPS 27º03’08” 112º09’44” (WGS84)





2.4 Magdalena ruins… on both sides of the road. 27º03’30” 112º10’07” (WGS84)



They are more extensive than I had assumed from what was written and photographed, over the years.









There is a stone pila (reservoir) nearby that was filled by an aqueduct that originated several miles away in the Magdalena canyon. The mystery of this site is: why here out in the desert rather than in the canyon, which has plenty of water and is where the village of San Jose de Magdalena is located? There is a stone church ruin close to the village. That ruin is considered by most to be a Dominican-era mission visita.



The ruins out here, in the desert may have been an early Jesuit site (1697-1768) or a Franciscan site (1768-1773) for moving Mulege mission to after the floods of 1770, or maybe an extension of the Dominican visita (1773-1854) for agriculture?



Name confusion is traced back to Arthur North during his 1906 Baja adventure (‘Camp and Camino in Lower California’) while he was camped at these ruins and knew the village and arroyo was called Magdalena. On the 1745 Jesuit list of missions and 1757 Jesuit map, one named Santa Maria Magdalena is listed as ‘started’ (but shown far to the north of here, closer to Bahia de los Angeles).



North believed these ‘Magdalena’ ruins were of that Jesuit mission and called them ‘Santa Maria de Magdalena’. In 1949/1950, Marquis McDonald (‘Baja: Land of Lost Missions’) found this site and used North’s description and a nearby rancher using that name, too. The Auto Club maps and the Baja Almanac show this site as ‘Santa Maria Magdalena’ (although both show it a few miles further south).




There never was a mission of ‘Santa Maria Magdalena’. So, the question is: was it ‘started’ as indicated on the old map and list and never finished.? Was it here, near San Jose de Magdalena or closer to where the 1757 map shows it? Perhaps the other site was discovered in 1966 by an Erle Stanley Gardner led expedition? Elizabeth and I photographed that site, last January http://vivabaja.com/109





Kevin Clough Photo above from ~10 years ago.



The pila photo from Kevin.





2 Marquis McDonald Photos from ~1950.

After taking several photographs and being too hot to seek the pila, we motored on this little used road and soon came to a clearing and a driveway to a blue ranch house that looked abandoned. It was 0.2 mile from the ruins. On the Google Earth satellite images, you can easily see the ranch, clearing, aqueduct route past the ranch and the pila at the end of the aqueduct.











More ranches along the old aqueduct and mountainside are passed 0.6 mile from the ruins and this is where we find a road across the big Arroyo Boca de Magdalena going north, and use it as an exit. At mile 0.9 from the ruin, we come to a better road heading east and west, with a sign for “Rancho La Posa 1500 mts.”




This is the better route the rancher had mentioned and passes the base of the mountain before reaching Highway One at Km. 162.5, 4.6 miles from the ruins. The final 0.3 mile to Highway One is on a graded road going to a rock quarry. This is just north of the paved detour around the series of new bridges being built.

3.8 miles north of the Highway junction is the signed road to San Jose de Magdalena (Km. 168.5). Santa Rosalia is 21.5 miles north of where we reached Highway One.




CONTINUED HERE: http://forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=40486




[Edited on 8-1-2009 by David K]

Ya, I really like the looks of this part of Baja!

Thanks David. I was waiting for this part around the Magdalena ruins. Good job!

1958 Lower California Guidebook

Text of region



Map of region

[Edited on 8-1-2009 by David K]