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The brochure mentioned "environmentally sensitive, low impact excursions into the most remote corners of the peninsula."... "Traveling in small groups (to ensure flexibility and a quality experience) in comfortable 4-wheel drive vehicles, you will be escorted by bilingual guides dedicated to cross cultural contact and environmental preservation"...."The aim is to travel well but without excess."
Among the advertised excursions was a week-long hiking and pack animal trip to the remote western foothills and canyons of the Sierra San Pedro Martir in northern Baja. My wife Bonni and I signed up to go in August!
Manuel Sanchez, the owner of Expediciones Ecotur, certainly lived up to his flexibility promise. He gave us the options of being met in San Diego, driving across the border to Rosarito and leaving our vehicle there, or joining up with him anywhere on route. Wanting to see some of Baja independently beforehand, we agreed to meet at the village of San Vicente 60 miles south of Ensenada.
Manuel was there waiting for us. He had arranged for us to leave our vehicle at the ranch house of one of our guides. After we all enjoyed a superb lunch at a local restaurant*, Fernando Fernandez, the guide, asked if he could bring his two children, Abram 8 and Fernandito 10, along. We had no objection. Our only regret was that we didn't think to bring our own children, 8 and 11.
From San Vicente we were driven 50 miles south in Manuel's six-seater Suburban. At the village of San Telmo, we left the highway and followed a dusty, washboard road 35 miles into the mountains. Vast expanses of the chamise covered hillsides were black and still smoldering from recent fires.
We stopped and camped the night at Valladares - an old gold mine that had been worked between 1890 and 1905, and off and on to recent times. We'd already had time to be impressed with our Mexican companions. Manuel, speaking near-perfect English, was a gold mine of information about the plants, the history and the politics of the area. Fernando and his children were models of politeness. It was wonderfully relaxing to be with people so patient and courteous.
Next morning, after driving another 7 miles, we came to a locked gate. A sign proclaimed that the area was closed for research by the Autonomous University of Baja California! Manuel had the key and the owner's permission to enter. Driving carefully down a snaking series of switch backs, we reached the end of the road. Leaving the vehicle in 95 degree heat, we shouldered our packs and hiked three miles to the Rio San Antonio. The overflowing greenery of the stream banks stood in amazing contrast to the surrounding cactus-dotted aridity through which we were descending.
Rio San Antonio is the largest watercourse draining from the San Pedro Martir. It is a broad, permanently flowing stream rushing into a number of fine "swimming pools." Whitish granite boulders, swept down from the great batholithic protrusion above, offer many places to ford or hop across the stream. In contrast the canyon walls are mostly dark volcanic and metamorphic rock.
It was good to reach the stream and soak our heads with water. Crossing over, we came to the remains of a once flourishing ranch. The former fields were now dusty clearances among the trees, the adobe buildings were locked and boarded up, an old irrigation channel was dry and choked with leaves.
Waiting for us beneath a sprawling, ancient live oak were three rancheros - working cowboys from hat to heel. They had horses and pack-mules tied near by. Manuel explained that Rancho San Antonio would be our base camp. From here, we could carry our own packs, use the mules as pack animals, or ride the horses.
On a two day excursion from our base camp, we put our packs on the mules and hiked 8 miles up Arroyo San Antonio to El Salto, a "must-see" series of thunderous cascades and precipitous descents (the largest about 80 feet) where Arroyo San Antonio tumbles 1500 feet off the pine shrouded heights of the Sierra San Pedro Martir, to the cactus dotted hillsides beneath.
Hiking was made tolerable in the summer heat by frequent soakings in the stream; and welcome midday shade was provided by lofty oaks and sycamores, and enormous thunderclouds looming over the peaks. All afternoon, breezes rustling through the poplars and aspens gently merged with the near continuous percussion of thunder from above.
Along the watercourse, there were also numerous willows, mesquites and cottonwoods, as well as the odd, lofty, lonely pines that had sprouted from seeds washed down from the plateau. Almost in the shadow of some of the pines were hillsides supporting groves of towering Cardón cacti. The area is an ecological marvel - a unique transition zone between desert, pine forest, and chaparral.
Approaching the falls, we saw larger and deeper pools with native trout swimming abundantly in the cooler, fresher water. After heavy rains and snow melt on the plateau above, the falls become "raging torrents of Yosemite-like grandeur." In the splash zone of the falls, eight-foot, tree-like ferns and lush vines flourish in near rain forest conditions. Not your normal picture of Baja! It was a magical, spiritual place that left us feeling privileged to be there.
The diversity of plant life was matched by the richness of the bird life...
