Wow! This was probably the most pristine and beautiful canyon/wash area I have ever hiked in the ABDSP area. When I first turned off the jeep trail and started hiking down the canyon I was memorized. I felt as if I was the only human to have ever walked thru it. I felt guilty of polluting it with my foot steps. Many, many animal tracks could be seen. Rabbit, Bighorn Sheep, Coyote, Mountain Lion, etc all were there. The 2.5 miles of canyon consisted of section after section of flat sandy wash with a dry fall at the end. Towards the middle of the canyon it was becoming too difficult to navigate with my big camera in my hands and I decided to put it in my backpack. No sooner did I click the waist buckle closed did I hear a sound up to my left. I looked up and less than '50 away was a Bighorn Ram staring straight at me. I knew if I moved he would run. He was big and had some major damage to his right leg area. I could see a lot of the fur was gone and there was a long black section of maybe scar or scab healing. After maybe 2-3 seconds of staring he bolted..gone up the rocky ridge, I never saw him or any other Bighorn that day. Eventually I got to the end of the canyon and to my surprise was an old train section consisting of three passenger cars and one caboose. The caboose was from Mexico and the passenger cars were form Montreal. The pastel greens inside the passenger cars were pretty funky and the brilliant,flashy colors of the Mexican caboose brought memorable images of past Mexico trips to my mind. After finally reaching the tracks and seeing the old railway pieces down in the gorge I realized I was almost out of time and needed to head back. I fast tracked down the gorge, fought the catclaw, took some pictures and headed back. I made good time going back and was able to get on the freeway by 5pm.
I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story.
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| Looking down into the first part of the canyon |
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| A natural Tinaja |
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| Natural Tinaja |
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| Another sandy section of the canyon |
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| About a '20 dry fall, beautiful |
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| Desert Lupine |
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| Another sandy section, Tule Mtn in the far background |
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| Bright Maroon Sumac Berries |
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| Finally the train tracks, again Tule Mtn in the background |
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| Another possible blind, the birds seemed to love it |
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| I found this train section at the end of the canyon |
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| Passenger cars were from Montreal |
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| Funky 1950's pastel green interior colors |
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| The Canadians are the most friendly people on trains |
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| Humm.. |
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| Looking thru the cars |
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| Subsidized..wow.. |
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| Electrical room |
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| Looking into the caboose |
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| Inside the caboose |
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| Looking back at the train from the engineer caboose seat |
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| Engineer caboose area |
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| Caboose area |
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| Caboose was from Mexico |
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| Caboose view |
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| The wheel chock indicates a long term parking spot |
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| Montreal cars |
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| Looking north into Carrizo Gorge |
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| Looking straight down at the railway wheels. They are almost dead center in the picture |
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| Looking into one of the tunnels |
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| Inside the tunnel |
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| Why do animals always crap on rocks?? |
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| Looking south into Carrizo Gorge |
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| Looking north into Carrizo Gorge |
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| Finally the old railway parts! |
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| June 15'th 1893!! |
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| Old wheels |
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| Old wheels |
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| More old parts..buried in catclaw! |
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| Old wheels |
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| Old wheels |
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| Old wheels |
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| Old wheels |
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| Looking back up to the tracks |
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| Old can that had railway track spikes |
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| Damn catclaw, this was from only 100' or so of scrambling in the gorge. Got my hands and face also |
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| The end of the canyon before I entered the gorge |
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| One of my favorite photographic subjects, animal scat. This scat has some small teeth in the mouth bones, maybe a small rodent of some sort. |
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| Juniper Berries, they were everywhere |
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| Found another wildlife guzzler. That is a total of (4) in the area. |
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| Can't visit the desert without finding a mylar balloon |
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| Yours truly with my Team Injinji Shirt |
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