Route Questions - Agua Verde to San José De La Noria & La Cueva -> Los Burros

Howdy! Headed to Baja Sur for a couple weeks of riding and had some questions about route conditions:

Is the road from Agua Verde to San José De La Noria still pretty beat up? A friend and I rode down the opposite way (SJDLN -> AV) in January of 2018 against pretty much everyone's advice in SJDLN we could find and it was indeed pretty messed up. It took us about 6 hours to cover the last 10km of this trip. Lifting a loaded down XR650L over boulders is not too fun. Anyone travelled this road lately?

From there, I'm wanting to go to Santa Maria, Tambobiche (Tambabiche?), and Los Burros, before cutting down to La Paz via San Evaristo. I see around ~25km SSW (as the crow flies) there is a few ranches tagged as "La Cueva" that appear to have a road going south toward "La Banderita" which leads on to Los Burros. Does a road exist that heads south closer to the coast? I have a range of ~260km on my bike and would like to find a shortcut between the three coastal villages without having to ride back and forward to Cid Constitucion for gas. Know of another village in the region that has gas for sale regularly?

For reference I'll be on my WR450F and regularly ride technical single track here in the PNW. A little bit of rocky stuff isn't gonna spook me but I am also doing this alone, so burro trails up the mountainside may be a bit much for me.

If you have any other fun rides or recommendations, especially in Comondu, send them my way! I've enjoyed reading through the forums and getting more knowledge about the area.

[Edited on 2-5-2020 by colloquialoatmeal]

Harald, let's not beat up a newbie... AV was an abbreviation, not a misspelled name.

Of course, maybe you meant his "Tambobiche (Tambabiche?)" which nobody spells correctly, even the locals. The Baja Almanac has it as TIMBABICHI.

We rode into Timbabichi last year around Easter. It's a fun ride and a very cool bay at Puerto Gato. Have ridden from San Evaristo to La Paz many times in the last 3 years, great run along the coast. The ride into SE from MX 1 is pretty easy and fun.

When did you do the back door into Agua Verde from Constitucion? We tried going from AV to Constitucion about 2 years ago. Got a couple miles into it, tons of rock slides. I had the truck in AV, and it wasn't making it, so we turned around.

One of the best rides South of La Paz is along the coast to Los Barriles. The dirt starts at San Juan de Los Planes. Top 5 coastal ride in all of Baja.

Give us more details of what your looking for.


AV back door trail:





[Edited on 2-5-2020 by JZ]

Quote: Originally posted by 4x4abc

may I recommend - if you need help with tracks or locations, don't just throw misspelled names around why would anyone try to figure out what you mean a misspelled name plus a lat/long can set things in motion

there are dozens of mining roads (4x4 wide) between Timbabiche and Los Burros
there is a bikable trail between Los Dolores and Los Burros

Quote: Originally posted by JZ

I'm not sure where Los Burros is exactly, but here's a thread on the general area you are talking about. It mentions Los Burros in passing. http://forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=85069 I want to have another run at doing AV to San Jose De La Noria. [Edited on 2-5-2020 by JZ]

See Los Burros, on the coast, near Mission Los Dolores...

Quote: Originally posted by colloquialoatmeal

Whoa, that's exactly what I was looking for! Any chance you have the gpx files for those roads?

Quote: Originally posted by 4x4abc

Quote: Originally posted by colloquialoatmeal   Whoa, that's exactly what I was looking for! Any chance you have the gpx files for those roads? it is all part of a digital Baja Almanac I am working on looking for talent and funding, by the way I'll see what I can extract for you tonight here is a teaser of what I have in store: [Edited on 2-5-2020 by 4x4abc]

inReach track map (Dolores/ Los Burros area)

My quest was to see Mission Los Dolores (X on white dot) from the canyonside ridge viewpoint. There are two... the first I walked to from the yellow triangle at and the other is the longer walk from the road with the hiking man symbol at. Los Burros is at the east end of the road shown on the inReach map... Mission Los Dolores (1721-1741 site) has no road to it unless you bring your vehicle in by boat to the beach!





Here is the region track map, showing the area of three mission sites (San Luis Gonzaga, La Pasión, Los Dolores) southeast from Constitución and the drive to San Evaristo and on to La Paz:


(the cluster at the top right labeled 4 is Los Dolores as seen in the previous map).



[Edited on 2-5-2020 by David K]

Quote: Originally posted by JZ

We rode into Timbabichi last year around Easter. It's a fun ride and a very cool bay at Puerto Gato. Have ridden from San Evaristo to La Paz many times in the last 3 years, great run along the coast. The ride into SE from MX 1 is pretty easy and fun. When did you do the back door into Agua Verde from Constitucion? We tried going from AV to Constitucion about 2 years ago. Got a couple miles into it, tons of rock slides. I had the truck in AV, and it wasn't making it, so we turned around. One of the best rides South of La Paz is along the coast to Los Barriles. The dirt starts at San Juan de Los Planes. Top 5 coastal ride in all of Baja. Give us more details of what your looking for. AV back door trail: [Edited on 2-5-2020 by JZ]

Quote: Originally posted by JZ

Here you go.

Quote: Originally posted by 4x4abc

the drive through Santa Maria to San Jose de la Noria is a lot more scenic than the fast road coming from Insurjentes how Baja rides used to feel 30 years ago turn off at km29

here are some images from that side valley to San Jose de la Noria
I don't like 800pix images - so here is a link:
https://carlosnpainter.smugmug.com/Travel/El-Quepo/

Why not give him a look at the No Wimps route so he knows how to get to it. Your trip reports showing the rocky driving near Rancho La Trinidad was pretty awesome!

Here's that photo sized to 800 pixels using Postimages.org:



[Edited on 2-6-2020 by David K]

Quote: Originally posted by colloquialoatmeal

Does the road go through from El Barril to La Trinidad? I traced a road all the way from La Trinidad to 27°32'39.82"N, 112°34'45.28"W but from there it looks like there's a steep canyon between that road and another road that runs south to Tres Virgenes. Just looking for a shortcut from San Francisquito to San Ignacio without taking the normal route past Piedras Blancas.

Quote: Originally posted by 4x4abc

since we are on this subject - does anyone have the location of the northern locked gate for Rancho San Miguel?

[Edited on 2-8-2020 by BajaNomad]

They do sell gasoline at El Barril, right next to the Ybarra House, the abandoned two(+) story brick building, when I was there.

The first gate (not locked) is at the entrance to Rancho Ilusión. Ask there about the locked gates on south.

In 2017, the owner said the gates will not be locked unless it becomes necessary.

Quote: Originally posted by advrider

JZ, or anyone else, how long from the highway into Agua Verde on a moto? We are on 990 Adventures but can ride pretty much anything on them. I tried converting the tracks on the first page but they didn't work for me, I will have to give it another shot. I did some searching and it looks like there might be a small restaurant but not much else? Plan on camping I'm guessing? Should we come off of highway 1 South of Loreto or use the tracks from earlier out of Ciudad Insurgents? We will probably be coming from San Juanico.

Quote: Originally posted by colloquialoatmeal

Hey everyone, got back, writing a trip report that should be up soon but a couple points really quick RE: this thread: Road to Agua Verde is more beat up than usual but still very passable on a moto of any size. They're doing road work right now to patch up some holes and put new retaining walls in toward the entrance from the highway. Road between Agua Verde and San Jose de la Noria has actually gotten much worse! I made it to KM 13 (from the turn off at the wash just north of Agua Verde) and walked almost to the top of the hill. The road up to KM 13 was fairly technical in some spots, just tons of rocks. There are sections beyond that are doable on a bike but if I would rate them as black diamond or even double black diamond. Very large sized rocks and super tight lines between them. Massive drop offs in the road, some as high as 3-4m. No chance of a jeep getting through. I did find some track and someone has definitely tried it at some point. I made a video and will upload it to youtube if anyone's interested in seeing the carnage! Road to Tembabiche was super fun, very beautiful! The families in the town denied that there was a road to Los Delores or Los Burros and unfortunately no one would sell me gas. Despite having a 3.4 gal tank, 1gal gas can, and 1l reserve bottle, my range on the WRF this trip was abysmal. I barely made it out of Tembabiche; by the time I made it back to Cid Constitucion I was on fumes. I'll post a full report including some very cool cave paintings but figured I'd drop a quick status report. Oh, and Leonora does make food at Agua Verde, the place is called 'Brisa del Mar' and it's awesome food! She made me sashimi from some fish caught as I was pulling up. Killer!

Quote: Originally posted by advrider

Anyone convert the two files that JZ posted to a GPX file? I have tried several times with no luck using GPS visualizer? Not sure why it's not working but the file is not readable after it's converted.

Quote: Originally posted by advrider

Anyone convert the two files that JZ posted to a GPX file? I have tried several times with no luck using GPS visualizer? Not sure why it's not working but the file is not readable after it's converted.