Mexican Holidays

Several months ago after noticing how much airline tickets were to fly to Texas for Christmas/New Years, a plan was formed to make a Baja trip instead. Chuck was in as well, so we put together a trip and headed south and crossed the border on Christmas eve. We took the same route for the first leg of the trip as we did in the spring, crossing at Mexicali and heading for San Felipe. First stop was just north of San Felipe. I have to give Michael from the spring trip credit for this, but no baja trip would be complete now without a stop at the fireworks stand.

Grande Boom! Worth every penny.

Chuck and I ended up purchasing a small armory, money well spent.  We headed into San Felipe.

About this point in the trip it became very clear that this was a different sort of trip then the one I made in the spring. In the spring Chuck and I bounced all over the place looking for endemic species and wildlife. While that trip was more of a biology trip then anything else, this was straight vacation. I hadn't taken a single note in my field book, or written down any of the birds I had seen to this point. Very strange for me.

I really like San Felipe, the town looked like it might have been hurting a little from a lack of tourists. Especially considering it was Christmas eve.

It was nice to see the Sea of Cortez again, I missed it.

I decided that when I can finally have a dog, I'm coming down to Mexico and taking one of these guys off the street. I was also fond of the lack of a need for a boat ramp.

There were two more very important stops in San Felipe before we could continue south.

Number 1...

And number 2...I wish I could describe how happy this makes me. No matter how many times I try, I could never make these as well as the little Mexican lady.

We also met up with Al, and Chris in San Felipe. Chris is starting some half year long trip ending in Central America. If only I could skip half a year of work...

We left San Felipe later then intended therefore we decided to head towards Percebu, north of Gonzaga Bay, to crash for the evening. The place was deserted, so we made ourselves at home under a palapa. After a dinner of chips, local salsa, and tequila I crashed hard into my sleeping bag. The weather was still getting extremely cool in the evenings and the wind was moving. However the sunrise in the morning definitely made up for it.

 Merry Christmas to me!

We managed to get out early enough to avoid anyone coming around looking to collect a fee for camping. Headed south again, we found the end of the pavement and aired down the tires since much of the driving from here was on dirt road or two tracks. The road was actually several miles of pavement further then it was when I was here in the spring. They are really trying to get a paved road all the way into Gonzaga Bay.

We stopped briefly in Gonzaga Bay for brunch. I had huevos rancheros with fresh shrimp... holy crap it was good. The wind was still howling though. We had originally intended to stay here a night but with the weather being as it was we decided to keep moving and head inland a bit.

After several miles of dirt road we came to Coco's Corner. Chuck and I stopped here in the spring but Coco was unfortunately in the hospital. He was home this time so we stopped, had a beer, and chatted with him for a while.  The man is a Baja legend and it was great having the chance to listen to him for a while. Chris got a pic of us with Coco, I'll be sure to post it when I get it.

After Coco's we turned inland and drove up Calamajue Canyon, a new route for me. I love finding water in the desert.

The Mineral formation from a spring in the side of the mountain is one of the landmarks this track is known for.

Very cool. Now even though this was a vacation and not a biology trip, I still looked for wildlife. I can't help it. I didn't find anything out of the ordinary, just some killdeer. But definitely wouldn't mind coming back up this canyon again to do more looking around. The two track followed the stream several miles into the canyon. Even after we climbed out of the canyon the road didn't lack for scenery.



Note the plants that look like Joshua Trees, similar but different species.

The further down we went the greener it got. They had obviously gotten some rain. The desert looked like a gold course in places it was absolutely incredible. All the elephant trees that are usually leafless and brown, were leafed out. Everything was green, talk about good timing on our part. The recent rain would probably let things green up and photosynthesize for only a few weeks. It was great.

The light was getting low but you can still notice the green. For reference, this picture was the same road just further north where it obviously didn't rain as much.

Check out the size of this Cardon cactus!

We found a ridge off the road to camp. Still cool and windy but man the veg. here was fantastic.



And more green in the morning! It was green all the way to HWY 1 and almost to our turn off just north of Bahia de los angeles.

Nice fairway huh?

Ok, sorry for the picture dump. But after having traveled, worked and camped in the desert for the last year... this was incredible.

We made our way in Bahia de los angeles to get supplies and gas up before heading to Ensenada Alcatraz.

Beach Bum

Back from Baja. Lots of fish, kayaking, and beach bumming.  Hope to have pics up by the end of the week.

"Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

Some pics from the Grand Canyon. Weather was... interesting, so it didn't create ideal light for photography but was gorgeous none the less with the snow all over the rim and halfway down the canyon walls.

The rest of the crew

We hiked in through the falling snow, into the rainy canyon.  It was a wet, and slippery nine miles. 

Since this was my first trip to the canyon, I was still wondering if this was some sort of cruel practical joke "you guys are a bunch of liars there's no canyon out there"

Finally below the snow... but not the rain.

Made to within a few kilometers of the mine we were looking for by sunset, so we found a nice ridge line to camp on.  It was a wet night. The rain didn't finally stop until the early morning hours the next day.  However it was a gorgeous view when we stepped out of our tents the next morning.

Then, out of no where, sunshine!

Hiked around the ridge and down the wash, hoping some of our gear would dry out in the morning.

Found our abandon mine shaft.  Most have been fun getting materials in and out of here when it was in use.



After replacing the batteries in the bat monitors, we hiked back to camp and packed up.  There was over a foot of snow on the ground in places making it tricky backpacking.  I was trying to conserve water on the way in since we weren't going to the river, this was a mistake.  The lack of water the day before caused me to start cramping in my quads about half way up the ascent. Just my bodies way of reminding me to get my fluids next time :)



Inner Basin

Hiked into the Inner Basin inside the San Francisco Peaks this fall.  Hit the weather and light just right...

Badgers!

I was fortunate enough to see two badgers this summer.  The first live badgers I have ever seen.  The first one was fairly early in the season, we were driving out to do our normal nocturnal surveys and saw this guy running off on the side of the two track trail.  Chased him down to the entrance of his burrow where he smiled for us.... and by smiled I mean snarled, glared, hissed, and threw dust up in the air!  Cute huh?

I apologize for the crappy pic, but all I had was my little point and shoot.  That, and well its hard to take a picture when you are gently reaching as close as you can get with one hand while keeping delicate, tender and painfully exposed toes away from the snarling badger.  In hind sight a video would have been entertaining.

My second badger of the summer came in the middle of the night while walking back to the truck.  We were in an area where the mountains come right down to the edge of the stream we were surveying, so we were crossing in, over, and around rocky ridges and the sandy washes between them trying to get back to the truck.  As we descended down into this draw we were constantly trying to keep a look out for burros.  The last thing I want is to corner a burro on a narrow trail with the only thing to defend myself with being a net.  As we got down into the draw though there was something else I should have been looking out for....
We started across the sand and heard some brush moving in front of us about 20 feet away.  It was close to the ground, and we had seen many jack rabbits in here before, so I didn't think anything of it.  As we passed that area out of no where a group of about 6 javalinas came storming out of the thick brush! There was no time to react, as they ran within feet of us and straight through some of the thickest brush out there.  No stopping them, they just put there heads down and boom straight through, creating holes as they went.  The noise and commotion and proximity definitely got my heart rate up.  I imagine they'd have the same disregard to my legs as they would to the woody vegetation they just ripped a hole through.  As I turned to keep going down our trail, something moved in the hole in the ground ahead of us

With just enough time to get off this grainy picture, he came out essentially saying "umm, what the crap was all that noise???" before turning back into his hole.