BajaNomad - The Old Road and Hwy. 1: (Part 1 El Rosario-CataviÃ±a)

The Old Road and Hwy. 1: (Part 1 El Rosario-CataviÃ±a)

David K - 10-30-2010 at 12:05 AM

Starting a fresh thread with new satellite images showing the relationship between the original Baja transpeninsular road and Highway 1, completed in 1973.

First off, the best map of the old road was drawn by Howard Gulick for the 1962 Lower California Guidebook. Here is the map of this first area of discussion (El Rosario to CataviÃ±a).

In 1962, there was no CataviÃ±a other than an abandoned adobe, now behind the Desert Inn hotel, in the new town of CataviÃ±a (which began after the highway was finished, as a gas station, parador or rest area and snack bar, an RV park and then it was the El Presidente hotel).

Here is Howard's map with the new highway drawn over:

Next, we have Cliff Cross' and his cool bird's-eye view maps drawn for his 1970 Baja guide.

We will start with El Rosario to El Arenoso... El Aguajito is between the two. The highlighter blue line is where the highway runs in relation to Cliff's placement of the old main road... then below, we will look at the satellite images to see the real relationship!

That is the El Rosario River Valley in the distance.

A four mile long, rocky grade began at El Aguajito and many considered it one of the toughest sections of the old road.

The next Cliff Cross map covers the section from El Arenoso to La Virgen and includes El Progreso (moved to Hwy. 1), Penjamo, El Aguila, San Agustin, Tres Enriques, Sonora (moved to Hwy. 1), and Agua Dulce (historic spring on the Camino Real)... (Cliff placed the spring on the wrong side of the main road, but the ranch ruins are correct)...

A sign for Rancho Penjamo is on Hwy. 1 right before the highway turns right and crosses the arroyo (Arroyo San Fernando).

Guayaquil didn't exist before 1970, but is located between Panjamo and El Aguila...

When Highway 1 was built, a gas station, trailer park and highway maintenance facility was built and named 'San Agustin' after the old ranch, located out-of-sight, over a hill from the highway...

Cafe Sonora is just past the road to El Marmol, originally the Rancho Sonora was on the old road...

Very near Km. 157, a water truck supply road was made in 1973 to the old road so water could be taken from the historic spring of Agua Dulce.

The spring was bulldozed and the original date palm destroyed. Water was needed to build the highway.

32 years later I returned to find the bulldozed grading at the spring still visible, but vegetation has hidden the other scars and a blue palm now grows there.

The water truck road is badly washed out now. A better way to get to Agua Dulce and the old road is at Km. 160-161. Thanks go to Neal Johns for finding this road!

Agua Dulce in 2005

OLD MAIN ROAD:

Looking south on the old road... my truck is on the Agua Dulce access road from Km. 160-161.

Just south of Agua Dulce, the old southern road from El Marmol joins the old main road... then the La Virgen shrine and the site of a small business that serviced travelers, before the highway was built.

The road is to the Pacific coast at San Jose lighthouse (faro).

The old main road joins Hwy. 1 just north of the rock art cave parking turnoff... which is just before the first CataviÃ±a stream crossing.

The CataviÃ±a/ Santa Ynez area...

This is a high view... the Santa Ynez paved airport is on the right.. and the roack art cave is on the left.. the black line is Hwy. 1.

Hope a few of you found this interesting and will try and drive some of the old Baja road, while it is still there! A really good section is from Agua Dulce to CataviÃ±a.

You can easily get on it from the El Marmol road (at the orig. Rancho Sonora site) and go to Agua Dulce, however, it is deeply rutted with a high rocky crown... So, I recommend extra high ground clearance for the section north of Agua Dulce.

Other sections are shorter, but at least you can have a look now that you know where it is. Many of the dirt roads one sees along Hwy. 1, that you might presume is the old road, are actually detour or access roads made during the construction of Hwy. 1. A really good example of this error often published, is south of Loreto along the steep grade above Ligui. The old main road did not go through Loreto, and the only road below Loreto in the 60's dead-ended at Ligui.

The old main road went through San Jose Comondu, from just south of Bahia Concepcion (or a slightly longer option to La Paz was through La Purisima) and on to Villa Constitucion (or El Crucero) as Cd. Constitucion was called then.

It takes a bit of work to put this all up, so let me know if you like it and that will encourage me to continue on south with the old and the new!! :bounce:

[Edited on 3-20-2019 by David K]

racheldarlin - 10-30-2010 at 07:28 AM

Fantastic post. Thank you for sharing and please keep them coming. I share your obvious passion for Baja history and have used information from your web site many times for planning trips. Will these post become part of your site?

BooJumMan - 10-30-2010 at 07:52 AM

Nice job, thanks!

captkw - 10-30-2010 at 08:49 AM

HOLA, cool..I love stuff like this,going back next week, :bounce:

for the winter ....adios

mcfez - 10-30-2010 at 09:02 AM

Agua Dulce in 2005 Picture: Come on DavidK.....this is really a busted drip line scene on one of your jobsites

Now seriously: The second picture shows the road IN arroyo El Rosario. How did the large transport trucks with their heavy loads travel thru that? Sand all it seems...

[Edited on 10-30-2010 by mcfez]

Bob H - 10-30-2010 at 10:27 AM

Very nice WORK David! Love it. It's amazing to me that the old road still exists in many places.
Bob H

David K - 10-30-2010 at 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by mcfez
Agua Dulce in 2005 Picture: Come on DavidK.....this is really a busted drip line scene on one of your jobsites

The first satellite image, you mean?

That arroyo containing the old road is NOT Arroyo El Rosario... Arroyo El Rosario is in the background running from right to left (see Hwy. 1 bridge crossing it?).

The old road left El Rosario as the highway does today, but crossed to the other side west of where the Hwy. 1 bridge crosses... then continued on going east on the south bank before reacing the side arroyo where it turns south into it (across for the cliff 'El Castillo')... See Gulick's and Cross' maps.

There was many sandy sections, rocky sections, sections you would think needed 4WD... The trucks that brought supplies and gasoline down Baja where quite amazing... from flatbed panel side to something like Mr. Haney's truck from Green Acres selling, buying, transporting everything from live turtles to toothbrushes! They were called Fayuqeros... and got their trucks where ever business could be done.

David K - 10-30-2010 at 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by racheldarlin
Fantastic post. Thank you for sharing and please keep them coming. I share your obvious passion for Baja history and have used information from your web site many times for planning trips. Will these post become part of your site?

Glad you enjoyed enough to make this your first post on Nomad... WELCOME!!

I will continue, so stay tuned!

john - 10-30-2010 at 06:10 PM

I was just checking out some of those trails just last week on google earth. we will be out there this week for about 5 days just checking out all the different trails

David K - 10-31-2010 at 08:26 AM

Okay, Part 2 is done (Cataviña to Punta Prieta): http://forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=48791

Neal Johns - 10-31-2010 at 11:17 AM

DK, My favorite area! Thanks!

Also thanks for telling me where the real Agua Dulce was a few years ago!
You older guys are handy to have around. :lol:

Phil S - 10-31-2010 at 04:33 PM

David. Thanks for the 'history' trip. Always looking forward to reading your'stuff'.

Mexitron - 9-13-2012 at 01:08 PM

I've done the Agua Dulce to Catavina portion---lot of history there. Thanks for reinvigorating the thread, missed it the first time around.

bacquito - 9-13-2012 at 01:20 PM

alot of good work on your part, thanks.

David K - 9-13-2012 at 01:23 PM

Your welcome... and enjoy the links to the other parts of it!

Part 2 (Cataviña to Punta Prieta): http://forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=48791

thebajarunner - 9-13-2012 at 04:57 PM

I remember my first trip over that road- headed to El Arco to pit my friends for the 1971 Mexican 1000.(It was never called the "Baja" 1000 until SCORE came along)
We drove out of El Rosario after dark (lobster burritos at Mama's) and soon found ourselves at the beginning of the mountain crossing and roads headed in every direction.
I waved down a trucker and asked, in my really bad Spanish, "Which road goes to Santa Ynez (we never called it Catavina)"
He sort of grinned and said, as best I could translate, "All roads go to Santa Ynez"
So, we just picked one and wound up, around and over that nasty grade, in the dark, first time in off-road Baja.
It was a true adventure, one that still resonates, even after so many thousands of miles racing, pre-running and just prowling around.

David K - 9-13-2012 at 05:26 PM

Yes, if there was a fork in the road and it wasn't mentioned in Gerhard & Gulick (Lower California Guidebook), then it was just a detour and would re-join up ahead. Detour roads were made if a boojum tree fell across the road, or a truck was broken down a long time, or to get around a low spot after a rain.

The last Mexican 1000 was 1972 (Mexicali to La Paz via San Quintin). Then the Mexican's kicked NORRA out thinking they could do better with their Baja Sports Committee Baja Mil (1000)... they didn't... So, Mickey Thompson and his new SCORE organization was invited in in 1974 to do a new race that July (about 400 miles long), The Baja Internacional.

It was a huge success, but there wasn't enough time to organize a 1000 race that year, so '74 was the only year without a '1000'. The first SCORE Baja 1000 was in 1975 and for the first time was a loop race in the northern state only, starting and ending in Ensenada.

The first SCORE 1000 to finish in La Paz was 1979. Since then, every 3-4 years or so, they run to La Paz and the other years they stay in Baja norte. Sometimes starting in Mexicali or elsewhere, over Ensenada.

I was lucky to have been at the '73 BSC Mil, the '74 Internacional, the '75 1000, and was a co-driver in the '79 1000!

[Edited on 9-14-2012 by David K]

vacaenbaja - 9-13-2012 at 06:55 PM

As a side note back in the late 70's I drove off the highway down to the settlement of Guayaquil out of curiosity.
Guayaquil is a port city in Ecuador and the name comes from
that region. I asked an elderly gentlemen in the towns main
building how did they come to name this place Guayaquil.
His response was someone saw it in a newspaper and they
all thought that it had a nice ring to it. Do not know if that is true, but it is what I was told.

David K - 9-13-2012 at 07:27 PM

Awesome story! I read it got started when El Marmol closed its onyx mine and the residents relocated.

David K - 10-8-2013 at 05:52 PM

Bump... if anyone out there would like more help in finding the old pre-1973 main Baja transpenisular road, just shout...

steekers - 10-8-2013 at 10:45 PM

Nice to review David. We are going down for the 1000 around that area. We should chat sometime before we go.

David K - 10-9-2013 at 12:52 AM

Anytime... I live in San Marcos now, just down the same main street you used to live off of!

BajaDixon - 10-9-2013 at 07:35 AM

Thanks a lot for the work in posting this up. I'll be all over this area for the next 30 days or so getting ready for the Baja 1000 and just scouting around.

How much of this years Baja 1000 goes along this route in this area?

David K - 10-9-2013 at 09:13 AM

Hi BajaDixon,

From what it looks like on the map SCORE posted:

Looks like it will be coming up the road from Faro de San Jose in the Seven Sisters to about 10 km. north of Cataviña where it will cross the highway and join the old main road which is less than 2 miles on the opposite side...

It may stay on the old road to just past Rancho San Agustin or to El Aguila where it will take the new mine road that heads way northeast. Then take the new road that goes west to Rancho El Metate/ San Juan de Dios (Mama Espinoza's family home)...

Then it goes north past Los Martires and San Antonio, into the mountains...

Edit... here are new roads drawn in that you can see on Google Earth... The Baja 1000 will be using some (from El Aguila near Guayaquil)...

[Edited on 10-9-2013 by David K]

Bajatripper - 10-9-2013 at 01:07 PM

Nice job with the maps, David. Brings back many fond memories of travel in that era--fond now, not so much back then as we all sweated, which formed streams of mud running down our bodies as the sweat mingled with the road dust. Ah, the good old days!

DavidE - 10-9-2013 at 04:07 PM

Damn! When I realized that our sojourn took place fifty years ago it makes me feel so damned OLD!

I'll tell you something else about El Aguajito:

When we departed Doña Maria Espinosa's place I remember I was shivering even while wearing a pair of Pendleton shirts. Our group encountered a faded red International 6-wheel truck on the grade. We all stopped and chatted. He was relieved to learn that there was plenty of diesel in El Rosario. He was carrying a load of tile to Ensenada. When we stopped, all the drivers decided to turn the hubs in and switch to 4WD.

When we banged and crashed our way to the top of the grade, the temperature had risen dramatically - thirty or forty degrees. It was like an oven up there and that's when we first noticed cumulus clouds to the east. Later on that day they would build to cumulonimbus and cause flash floods. For some reason I just now remembered that was on a Saturday.

When the wind came up, it brought a perfume of desert but no rain in our area. Just an arroyo full of roaring muddy water. Our campfires consisted of corazon de cardón, those holed tubular pieces of "wood" that seem to get harder and harder to find as the years pass by. We saw a wildcat, several coyotes and deer - small deer not big ones.

We had to pause (and camp) marveling at the cirios, and elephant trees. I saw my first scorpion at our first campsite. We had packed abalone empanadas from El Rosario (Abalone was selling for 15 pesos each for a 10" black).

David K - 10-9-2013 at 06:12 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bajatripper
Nice job with the maps, David. Brings back many fond memories of travel in that era--fond now, not so much back then as we all sweated, which formed streams of mud running down our bodies as the sweat mingled with the road dust. Ah, the good old days!

It was funny, but our trip in the summer of 1966 had us wearing sweaters inside the Jeep Wagoneer... The AC only knew one temperature... cold! We got some stares by any ranchers or truck drivers (fayuqueros) we rambled by... as it was easily 110º outside!

I was very young (not quite 8), but many parts of the trip to Cabo by Jeep made a lifetime impression.

Dah-veed, what I remember of the Aguajito Grade, 20 miles from El Rosario, was a l-o-n-g, s-l-o-w, bumpy climb. Many said it was the baddest part of the road to La Paz, but for us it was the dust bowl of Laguna Chapala, before the dry lake bed (which was the best part of the drive)! The grade into Comondú was pretty bad, too.

Here I am on that trip...

[Edited on 10-10-2013 by David K]

DavidE - 10-10-2013 at 09:39 AM

The folks at Chapala told us we were fortunate that it hadn't rained as the wet weather brecha bypassing the lake bed at that time was a real bear. We spaced the jeeps out maybe 200 yards apart. We had to. Could not see the vehicle ahead nor the vehicle behind. We had to unload EVERYTHING after crossing the lake, empty bags and boxes, unzip sleeping backs, unwrap tents, the whole nine yards to get the grit out. Rosa had warned us about the dry lake so the group had brought lots of brushes, brooms and paintbrushes to clean with. It was so bad crossing the lake my brother had to lay down the windshield flat and use goggles. Something I did not have. I crossed the lake with eyes closed. Go too slow was as bad as go too fast. The right speed so it was claimed was around 50 mph.

Probably the toughest part of riding in the back of a jeep was the side to side jolting. They rigged up 3/4" nylon hand hold ropes that I stretched my arms out to reach. I learned in a hurry to put gloves on. Blisters! Three cases of Carta Blanca, my kapok sleeping bag then my butt.

I remember they had to almost yell at me before the trip to splurge and buy CUTTERS which was the only DEET repellent at the time. It was expensive. Sun block cream was a joke - it made really great glue for trail grime. I wore an undershirt over my head to block the sun.

"Hey, pass forward a couple of bottles of beer" must have been repeated 500 times on that trip. Carta Blanca cost ten cents a bottle after the deposit was paid. No exaggeration that group must have gone through 60 cases of beer at least. Pit stops were frequent. I got to stretch my legs.

The cargo trucks tore up that grade as much as anything else. We were told that every so often a truck with men, picks and shovels would go and do the best they could. The trucks would dislodge rocks the size of basketballs. Tony, carried a huge octagon shaped pry bar - it must have been six feet in length. Some rocks took two guys hanging on the end of the bar to move.

Yeah the transpeninsula highway! No speed control needed!

Fatboy - 11-3-2014 at 04:09 PM

In the fall 3 out of the last 4 years this has been a current thread... And I missed it EVERYTIME...

Great job, David and Thanks for posting this!

Going to Part Two now. :yes:

David K - 11-4-2014 at 10:58 AM

Thank you for the interest and amigoism!

güéribo - 11-4-2014 at 07:39 PM

Thanks for taking the time to post this, David. I love that these historic topics are here to enjoy, for browsing now and later.

David K - 11-5-2014 at 06:23 AM

Thanks for letting me know you enjoy looking back. Baja is a time machine!

Neal Johns - 11-5-2014 at 10:23 AM

Agua Dulce is locked gated now by a rancher living there.

Fatboy - 11-5-2014 at 10:48 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Neal Johns
Agua Dulce is locked gated now by a rancher living there.

While I understand....that is too bad. It is mentioned so many times in old documents and I have always planned on stopping by at some point but.....

David K - 8-22-2016 at 11:38 AM

Any more interest in the main road to La Paz and Cabo BEFORE paved highways came in the 1970s?

David K - 7-13-2017 at 05:20 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Neal Johns

Agua Dulce is locked gated now by a rancher living there.

No locked gate last month (June 2017). Ranchers were happy to allow me to drive past and park by the gully containing the historic spring. See my 2017 Trip 5 photos, in the Trip Reports forum.

defrag4 - 3-19-2019 at 01:44 PM

Hey David, after driving the route from La Purisima/San Ysidro out to Highway1 I now realize that used to be the main highway south

Do you have any other threads on the original road around Loreto and down south?

We took the route from Comondu over to La Purisma, but I also saw a southern route leading from Comondu down towards Ciudad Insurgentes, I assume that was the original highway route?

Thanks for sharing all this history and knowledge with the group!

-James from Home on the Highway

[Edited on 3-19-2019 by defrag4]

BajaTed - 3-19-2019 at 05:13 PM

Great work as always David and just another mention of the old road.
A portion of the old road that descends steeply to the valley floor is carved out of the solid rock hillside in La Mision. I like to sit on the patio of Magana's restaurant in the valley there and imagine the road in use back then.
The locals called it the crazy stagecoach road

David K - 3-19-2019 at 05:15 PM

Quote: Originally posted by defrag4

Hey David, after driving the route from La Purisima/San Ysidro out to Highway1 I now realize that used to be the main highway south

Do you have any other threads on the original road around Loreto and down south?

We took the route from Comondu over to La Purisma, but I also saw a southern route leading from Comondu down towards Ciudad Insurgentes, I assume that was the original highway route?

Thanks for sharing all this history and knowledge with the group!

-James from Home on the Highway

[Edited on 3-19-2019 by defrag4]

Hi James,
While you were over some of the old highway route, the old road was not graded or at least not anymore... When we drove it in 1966, it was basically a single lane 'jeep' road from Bahia Concepcion to Comondu and out to La Poza Grande where the long straight graded road south began with hours of miserable washboard driving.
Some would take the slightly longer road through La Purisima to get south. I just posted a 1941 road map below the 1947 AAA letter you posted.

Here is the Howard Gulick 1962 map that was pretty close to what it was like for my folks and I. There was a short cut near the south end of Concepcion Bay that eliminated that loop east via Santa Rosalillita ranch: