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Ken Cooke
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8946
Registered: 2-9-2004
Location: Riverside, CA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Pole Line Road postponed due to injury
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A Baja Off Road Trail that has been destroyed AND eliminated
Does anyone here still remember, "That Road"??
The route from Puertecitos to Gonzaga Bay that USED to be a DEMANDING 4WD route? This road has been destroyed in my opinion, leading to less pristine
4WD seat time.
The former end of the pavement - Puertecitos
What a quait 4WD road!
Jeeps flying by!
Sea of Cortez scenery WAS easy to come by with this dirt road.
I was TOO HAPPY to drive over such rugged terrain.
My Baja dust-collecting Jeep
My Colorado-based Jeeper friend, Brad.
My L.A.-based Jeeper friend, Russ.
Baja-loving Jeep fun!
Natural scenic beauty
This road had some real rugged charm.
This spot was much easier to reach before the super highway was constructed.
So much dirt, all on one day!
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64848
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
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Great pictures Ken... Too bad you didn't experience it when it really was a 4WD Only kind of road (pre-1986 graded highway construction)!
Try and imagine 20 miles in compound low 4WD... averaging 5 mph or less... wooden crosses line the edge of the one lane wide, ultra steep grades where
those in lesser vehicles careened over the side. 
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Ken Cooke
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8946
Registered: 2-9-2004
Location: Riverside, CA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Pole Line Road postponed due to injury
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| Quote: | Originally posted by David K
Great pictures Ken... Too bad you didn't experience it when it really was a 4WD Only kind of road (pre-1986 graded highway construction)!
Try and imagine 20 miles in compound low 4WD... averaging 5 mph or less... wooden crosses line the edge of the one lane wide, ultra steep grades where
those in lesser vehicles careened over the side. |
That would have been no problem in my Father's wood panel-sided Full-Sized Jeep Cherokee. I bet it was a fun trail - even better before 1986!
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woody with a view
PITA Nomad
Posts: 15939
Registered: 11-8-2004
Location: Looking at the Coronado Islands
Member Is Offline
Mood: Everchangin'
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yeah, those look like any other dirt road in baja except the view is way better!
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64848
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Ken Cooke
| Quote: | Originally posted by David K
Great pictures Ken... Too bad you didn't experience it when it really was a 4WD Only kind of road (pre-1986 graded highway construction)!
Try and imagine 20 miles in compound low 4WD... averaging 5 mph or less... wooden crosses line the edge of the one lane wide, ultra steep grades where
those in lesser vehicles careened over the side. |
That would have been no problem in my Father's wood panel-sided Full-Sized Jeep Cherokee. I bet it was a fun trail - even better before 1986!
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While it would have been do-able without an issue in the 1960's and early 1970's, after the Transpeninsular Highway was completed (in late 1973)
supplies and most traffic for Gonzaga came in from the south. The road in from Puertecitos no longer carried commercial traffic and maintenance
ended... by 1979 the road was nearly impassable south of Puertecitos.
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Desertbull
Senior Nomad
Posts: 558
Registered: 8-27-2003
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Well IMHO it's never been barely passable.
Adventurers including me have gone south on this road since I was a kid and that has been a long time and my father in law traveled to Gonzaga via the
road since the early 50's and he recounts the same, always took him 3 days from San Felipe to Gonzaga...and he's almost as old as Bufeo! 
DB
DREAM IT! PLAN IT! LIVE IT!
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rts551
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6699
Registered: 9-5-2003
Member Is Offline
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Desertbull
Well IMHO it's never been barely passable.
Adventurers including me have gone south on this road since I was a kid and that has been a long time and my father in law traveled to Gonzaga via the
road since the early 50's and he recounts the same, always took him 3 days from San Felipe to Gonzaga...and he's almost as old as Bufeo!
DB |
I with you. first time on that road was in the 60's and it was not a "compound low 4 WD " road. Later in the mid 70's we pulled a 18 ft travel
trailer through there. Scary in the sisters area but we made it.
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bufeo
Senior Nomad
Posts: 793
Registered: 11-16-2003
Location: Santa Fe New Mexico
Member Is Offline
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Desertbull... always took him 3 days from San Felipe to Gonzaga...and he's almost as old as Bufeo!
DB |
Okay, okay. Enough of that or I'll post pix of kids getting stuck in Punta Bufeo driveways. 
Saw a local vehicle (2wd) making that final southern grade by negotiating it in reverse.
Ken, your photos and description are delightful. Too bad someone had to do the "Well-I-remember-when" bit, but that's the internet. In one of those
pics (Puertecitos) if you'd angled the camera just a bit more to the right we'd be looking at the casita of another Baja Nomad.
Allen R
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64848
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
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Taking 3 days to go 100 miles is pretty close to 'barely passable'... and in the end (BEFORE THE GRADED ROAD OF 1986) IT WAS pretty much all low
range. I was trying to give something that Ken could relate to after the photos of the 2WD dirt super road of his photos. I was over the original road
in '65, '67, '74, '75 and '79 (the first two years as a passenger).
I will someday get my family slides converted to a disc so I can share them of the good old days in Baja.
Some photos of the old Gonzaga road:
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thebajarunner
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3718
Registered: 9-8-2003
Location: Arizona....."Free at last from crumbling Cali
Member Is Offline
Mood: muy amable
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Well, I can tell you that road was a bear.
First time we did it was 1971 pre running the 500
Wore out an entire set of brand new take off tires on the rear going up those rutted grades, Northbound.
Two wheel drive pickup, stick shift, that baby just chattered, jittered, shuddered and stuttered up those hills.
In the race, locked rear end, auto trans, lots of horsepower it was not so bad,
Until you came on a couple of Bugs broke down on the narrowest of grades, then it got real ugly,
Just leave that to my memory and your imagination.
(But, if you are thinking, "over you go" you are not far off....)
gotta keep that race pace going no matter what...
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dizzyspots
Senior Nomad
Posts: 603
Registered: 9-22-2008
Location: Mescal AZ
Member Is Offline
Mood: rather be on the beach at Gonzaga
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A relative newcomer to this road...we 1st did it in 2007 as Baja virgins...FJ Cruiser...bone stock..took almost 5 hrs for this rookie to get to GB
form the Puertecitos cutoff...(wife swearing that she;ll NEVER do this again),,,and we LOVED it...been back 8 times since...miss the road? yeah
kinda...like having more time on the bay...you bet!!
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BajaBlanca
Select Nomad
Posts: 13196
Registered: 10-28-2008
Location: La Bocana, BCS
Member Is Offline
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those are some classic pics Ken ! the lineup of cars was great !
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edm1
Senior Nomad
Posts: 568
Registered: 8-23-2006
Location: Oak Hills, Ca
Member Is Offline
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Petition
Maybe a group of nomads can petition the baja government to "preserve" what is left of the trail to Gonzaga Bay and through Coco's. Is there such a
process in Mexico?
In 2007 (and again in 2011) I drove my motorhome through that long offroad trail and it took me 10 hours to get to Coco's. Great memories.
[Edited on 5-16-2012 by edm1]
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64848
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
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The word is, the new highway will bypass Coco's Corner by a mile to the west (following the original route to Chapala built by Arturo Grosso in the
mid 1950's). The El Camino Real between Calamajue and Santa Maria is along that section, as well... Two great old trails destroyed by modern road
building!
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durrelllrobert
Elite Nomad
Posts: 7393
Registered: 11-22-2007
Location: Punta Banda BC
Member Is Offline
Mood: thriving in Baja
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Two great old trails destroyed by modern road building
For those of us that don't own 4WDs it is called PROGRESS
Bob Durrell
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64848
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
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Yah... to coin a phrase from Mama Espinoza, instead of just 'good people', now there will be 'all kinds of people'!     
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Barry A.
Select Nomad
Posts: 10007
Registered: 11-30-2003
Location: Redding, Northern CA
Member Is Offline
Mood: optimistic
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I first "tried" to go over the grades south of PCitos in 1958 in a WW II 4x4 Army Ambulance--------we did not have enough power to get over the second
grade, gave up, and camped for a week in one of the coves at the bottom (N end) of Grade II, as I recall. While camped, a jeep with two guys came by,
tried the second grade above our camp (it may have been grade 3, can't remember exactly), rolled the jeep on the grade and one sustained severe
injuries---their trip was over.
The next time in 1963 was in a VW bus, and it took many runs at it to finally make it over the worst part. The vehicle was never the same. I was not
the driver, that time, and the driver was insane IMO.
Then again in about 1976 in an Ford F-100 2X4 with HUGE tires. I tore the motor-mounts out in Compound low coming north on the first grade south of
Huerfanitos. We had to chain the motor to the frame, and limped on after that.
After that, I had a Ford F-250 stick-shift 5-speed tranny 460 engine 4x4 and it was a slow slog, but no real problems. Still have that vehicle, as
well as the old F-100 Ford.
The grade was a terror (horror?), to me, and I remember it well. It was an adventure, for sure, but not pleasant for any of us. Gonzaga Bay was the
magnet that kept us coming over "that road".
Barry
[Edited on 5-16-2012 by Barry A.]
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bigboy
Nomad
Posts: 239
Registered: 12-28-2003
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I travelled that road at least five times between 1971 and 1975! It was bad but I drove a 1971 F250 4X4 with a granny first gear and a two speed
transfer case so I never worried too much about those grades!
I would just crawl up those grades at about walking speed with my buddy looking for wheel placement and large rocks that might be a problem. I seem to
recall that the road took the better part of a day to traverse!
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Neal Johns
Super Nomad
Posts: 1687
Registered: 10-31-2002
Location: Lytle Creek, CA
Member Is Offline
Mood: In love!
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I think I saw some of you kids there back in the late seventies when I was middle aged. 
My motto:
Never let a Dragon pass by without pulling its tail!
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64848
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
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Barry A. and bigboy, that sums it up as best as I can recall... I also drove the grades in a 2WD dune buggy in '74 and '75... Big tires, short wheel
base, motor in the back, fiberglass body all made it easy, but slow. In the 60's we were in my parent's Jeep Wagoneer... I recall my mom getting out
and walking some as the danger was so real as well as to listen for vehicles coming the other way (no room to pass on the grades).
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