astrobaja
Senior Nomad
Posts: 952
Registered: 5-22-2006
Location: near San Pedro Martir Park
Member Is Offline
Mood: beam me up
|
|
Rancho Concepcion
Hi all,
I just wanted to share the news that my Wife and I are now the very proud owners of a magnificent 1200 acre property on the way up to San Pedro Martir
park. Its actually marked on the Baja almanac, but probably the only people that have seen it are racers participating in the Baja 500 or 1000 as it
passes right past the ranch!
I'll back up a bit, we 1st learned about it when we stayed at Meling ranch a couple years ago, Andrea told us that her Sister Sandra and her husband
David Lang had another ranch further up the road that might be for sale. This was exciting news to us as we had been horse farming for 15 years and
had been considering selling our farm and trying out a new adventure! My Wife wanted a small bit of land suitable for a couple of her horses and I
wanted a dark sky free of light pollution (thats most of Baja BTW!) at a reasonable elevation. When David took us to see the property the following
fall we did'nt expect to find the "perfect" place, after all this was only the first property that we were visiting. After winding our way up the 6 km
dirt road we rounded the last corner through a wonderful live oak forest and came into a spectacular clearing perfect for a small paddock and house.
But the view of the edge of SPM park loomed in a gorgeous panoply to the east!! WOW this was more than perfect! The thing that struck us was the
immense stillness of the place, not a sound of so-called civilised world to be heard! Only sounds of birds and the breeze blowing through the oaks!
For those of you who have been to Meling and know a bit about its history, rancho Concepcion was where Aida Meling was wanting to retire to and there
are still the remains of the falling down building which was to be her home. Sadly she passed away before she could move there permanently.
There is a small apple orchard there with delicious apples, if you ever tasted the apple pie at meling you would have had those same apples!
If we are able to sell our horse business here in Canada then we plan on starting the building of our new home in Baja this fall. We have an
architect from the San Felipe area that specializes in adobe (compressed earth brick to be exact) off-grid homes, if we can find a nearby source of
clay soil then we can make all of the bricks at the site from the soils found there! A stream that runs year round will supply us with power via a
small hydro turbine, the rest of the power will come from PV cells.
Eventually after we get up and running with the house we would like to do an astronomy B&B with small cottages for people to stay in, but I
imagine we will get people that are also interested in birding and nature in general. The steep cliffs to the east are home to the condors, Duane
Meling told us that they can be seen on occasion. I included a couple pics of our spot, hopefully some of you will come to visit us in the future! Oh
yes Google earth got updated about a week ago with new high res data the whole area west of SPM is now high res, including concepcion!
|
|
|
astrobaja
Senior Nomad
Posts: 952
Registered: 5-22-2006
Location: near San Pedro Martir Park
Member Is Offline
Mood: beam me up
|
|
and heres the "road" leading towards Mikes Sky ranch, David Lang told us its VERY rough 
I know some of you have tried the shortcut before Meling that takes you to MSR but apparently this one is even rougher!!
|
|
|
astrobaja
Senior Nomad
Posts: 952
Registered: 5-22-2006
Location: near San Pedro Martir Park
Member Is Offline
Mood: beam me up
|
|
heres the small apple orchard right before harvest time!
|
|
|
Bruce R Leech
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6796
Registered: 9-20-2004
Location: Ensenada formerly Mulege
Member Is Offline
Mood: A lot cooler than Mulege
|
|
that is beautiful. I know you are going to enjoy building and living on your ranch. it is the best way in Baja I know I love my ranch.
Baja is full of nice peple but the ranch folks are by far the best.
Bruce R Leech
Ensenada
 |
|
|
Cypress
Elite Nomad
Posts: 7641
Registered: 3-12-2006
Location: on the bayou
Member Is Offline
Mood: undecided
|
|
Congratulations and good luck with your adventure. Thanks for the pictures.
|
|
|
Bob and Susan
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8813
Registered: 8-20-2003
Location: Mulege BCS on the BAY
Member Is Offline
Mood: Full Time Residents
|
|
thanks bruce...now i have to buy a bunch of horses
|
|
|
jorgie
Nomad
Posts: 430
Registered: 8-25-2006
Location: on another road,again
Member Is Offline
Mood: on the road....again,again
|
|
what are the terms of a ranch lease and what is the routine to get such a lease ? congratulations you are gonna have a wonderful time
|
|
|
rob
Senior Nomad
Posts: 509
Registered: 10-19-2004
Location: Pacific Coast, BCS
Member Is Offline
|
|
Hi Astrobaja,
Read your post with great interest.
In 1999 I nearly bought Rancho Meling and (Meling) brother Stu took me up to see Rancho Concepcion. I was truly taken with the place and have many
photos of the ranch, including Aida's old house. That very afternoon Stu tore out the road sign pointing to the ranch as he said there had been some
vandalism done by passers by.
Lovely part of the country, and I often think about "forks in the road" and how life would be if I had actually gone ahead with Meling.
Everone knows we Canadians are immune to cold - but I must warn you that I darn near froze my buns off on those winter mornings up in the San Pedro
Martir . . . bring your woollies!
Very best wishes to you, and I would love to come and see you guys some day, take another look at the observatory too (we saw two wolves there, and
the Pacific and Sonora at the same time!).
Rob
|
|
|
astrobaja
Senior Nomad
Posts: 952
Registered: 5-22-2006
Location: near San Pedro Martir Park
Member Is Offline
Mood: beam me up
|
|
Thanks for the best wishes everyone! I just wish our farm would hurry up and sell so we can start our adventure!
Bruce--I agree the ranch folk (I think its true the world over) are especially warm people.
Jorgie-- I honestly don't know about leasing land, we bought concepcion through the forming of our own Mexican corporation. The property is just
inside the restricted zone by a few km!
Rob, thats very interesting that you almost took the step of buying Meling. Love to see your pics of concepcion sometime!
Most of concepcion lies at around 4800' so it will dip just below freezing at night during the winter, hell thats balmy though compared to Ontario
winters with weeks on end with -20 C!
The road to the observatorio will be totally paved by end of the summer, there is talk of bringing power lines up the mountain to the observatory.
There are some VERY big scopes going to be built there in the years to come, like 8 meter class instruments, and they will need much more power than
what their current generator capacity can supply!
Modern scopes are sadly never looked through, they have instrument packages with CCD cameras and spectrographs.
SPM has some of the best astronomical conditions in the northern hemisphere! So my "little" scopes should find a happy home there!
cheers
Astro
|
|
|
jorgie
Nomad
Posts: 430
Registered: 8-25-2006
Location: on another road,again
Member Is Offline
Mood: on the road....again,again
|
|
sounds great
|
|
|
David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 65303
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
|
|
Congratulations Astrobaja!!
I have enjoyed your contributions here in the past and look forward to seeing more, now that you will be growing roots in Baja soil.... How fortunate!
The bed & breakfast or perhaps a camping area too is a wonderful idea, and like with Shari's Bahia Asuncion B&B, I am happy to help get the
word out!
You have a big 'back yard'!:
|
|
|
rob
Senior Nomad
Posts: 509
Registered: 10-19-2004
Location: Pacific Coast, BCS
Member Is Offline
|
|
Astrobaja - will check the archives this week . . . your post had me diving back into boxes that have never been opened since moving to the ranch in
2001 . . . let's hope mice have not practised their pecuiliar form of random censorship.
Please keep us posted on progress.
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xmbforum/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
