bigzaggin - 11-17-2004 at 11:50 AM
Not anymore...this winter anyway. This gorgeous hidden gem of a shortcut goat trail is officially on the D.L.
http://homepage.mac.com/monspubis/.Public/Ouch.jpg
Cresting a ridge on Sunday and BOOM! the road gives out, highsiding the Tundra's belly in thick cake dirt and leaving both passenger wheels spinning
uselessly over a four foot crevasse. Six hours later of jacking (hee-hee), filling, thinking, picture-taking, plan-Bing, and, eventually, excavating
my car from the hillside with shovels, and we were free. Run up the road, reload the car, laugh, discuss used winches in the Truck Trader and
continue.
Flash forward ten minutes to:
http://homepage.mac.com/monspubis/.Public/Nopase.jpg
We hit a deep washout. DEEP. You can't really tell in the picture, but it was a biggie. We (briefly) considered chipping out the cliff but quickly
gave up, lowered our heads, prepared for "the big back-up" and headed back to Pte.Santo Tomas to drink conciliatory Tecates, beaten again.
Anyway, mo bettah you go the long way back to the quota.
elgatoloco - 11-17-2004 at 12:02 PM
wow! 
Bummer....
Herb - 11-17-2004 at 01:11 PM
I figured it would come to that soon. That trail had been deteriorating badly. Lost my "girlie-man" step rails on that trail last year. Erosion had
made the conditions bad enough then that my wife wouldn't speak to me for the rest of the day for taking her on it. Beuatiful views from that area,
though. Thanks for the heads up along with the funny story and pictures.
Mexitron - 11-17-2004 at 02:36 PM
Is that the road that came out south of San Jose or the one that came right into the lighthouse. The lighthouse road had been washed out for years I
thought....
Great Pics--good work--even a bad day in Baja is an adventure!
[Edited on 11-17-2004 by Mexitron]
Looks like a little to the left
jrbaja - 11-17-2004 at 03:04 PM
might have been a good idea. And, Hi Lift jack right up the old trailer hitch to push her back on the road.
That's not litter I see in the background is it?
Looks like a fun adventure. Gracias for sharing.
Yes, the road behind the lighthouse....
bigzaggin - 11-17-2004 at 05:03 PM
is where we were stuck. I'd also heard tell a few years ago that it was washed out but a little recon mission proved otherwise. Been using the
track ever since...until now obviously. It's a really beautiful if somewhat slow drive but always worth the view, solitude and adventure.
Of course on this day, I WISH I had taken the road that spills out by Victor's place...but that one can be dicey as well. Haven't done it for years.
As for the incident itself, bearing left would have mandated some serious ESP...we actually collapsed that crevasse under the weight of our truck i.e.
it wasn't there when I came up on it. We literally felt the earth drop out from under the car. One of my scarier sticks actually. I doubt a Hi
Lift would have freed us per se, but it certainly would have made the dig easier and way quicker. I've been lucky enough to sneak by without one of
those things for years...no more. I'm buyin. And, with any luck, I'll have me a winch soon enough.
And no, that's not litter. That's the proverbial yard sale from the shell of my truck, unloaded to get at the wood & tools beneath (with a few
beverages for the "work day") All was cleaned up and carted off. Not that I need to justify my Baja-etiquette.
One more note: You can't see it in the washout out pic but when we first rolled up on that bad boy, there was a giant red paint smear against the
cliff (we banged it away in our ten second campaign to insta-widen the road). In other words someone with a VERY small wheel base (think Hyundai)
had actually PASSED BY that hell hole, inches from certain destruction.
Mexicans. God bless 'em.
FrankO - 11-17-2004 at 06:24 PM
A little over a year ago my buddy and I took the coast "road" from Punta Cabras to Puerto Santo Tomas. If it hadn't been getting cold, dark and windy
our "stuck" would have made some excellent pictures. We ended up digging a pathway over some tank traps up onto the roadbed at the quarry. Then trying
to get the gaurd to open the gate was another adventure. At first he wanted us to turn around but we worked it out eventually. Having had a short
wheelbase vehicle was a plus for sure.