SoCal Anza Borrego 2011, 11/11 - 11/12

[SAR_Squid79]

SoCal Anza Borrego 2011

We had a great time out at Anza Borrego. A pretty small turnout this year, compared to other years. This is typically one of the biggest and most popular runs of the year.

...No big deal - the turn out we had was a great group of guys and girl!

We had:
Me - SAR_Squid79 (Trail Leader)
Andy & son - V8cobra99
Bob & Wife - bzag
Jim & Jeeper buddy - WOFH
Jimmy & Son - CJimmy
Frank - BASEjumper (Trail Gunner)




Trip Report:
Frank & I were the only campers for Friday night. We had the driver's meeting pretty much as scheduled. We were a little concerned about the rain, but it had held off all morning so we pressed on.

As always, we had a little over an hour on pavement to get to the trail head for Canyon Sin Nombre, we hit the dirt, and aired down. We ran Canyon Sin Nombre and crossed over to Arroyo Seco Del Diablo. Throughout the morning, we were getting intermittant sprinkles of rain which was not enough to make any mud, and tunred out to be great for zeroing out the dust and making great traction! We stopped at the top of El Diablo Drop-Off where everyone bundled up as the temperature plummeted, and grabbed a quick bite to eat as we watched a small Jeep group coming up the drop-off.

We proceeded down the dropoffs down into what used to be known as "Broken Axle Gulch", I am sad to report that the gulch has been cleared out to the point where I'm sure that any stock 2wd jeep or truck could make it through. But at least they had the good taste to not insult wheeler's and removed the big "Broken Axle Gulch" sign - as there is pretty much zero chance of breaking ANYTHING going through there, anymore. IT sucks, because that section used to offer a little bit of a technical challenge, and excitement. Now you barely have to slow down...

After that, we dropped into Fish Creek Wash, and elected to go check out Sandstone Canyon. Sandstone Canyon has apparently seen 3 significant rock slides, and up to recently most of Sanstone Canyon has been blocked and not passable. The entire canyon is now doable, if you have a pretty capable high-clearance 4WD vehicle. 2 of the cave-in spots are actually a little tricky to negotiate, and we saw 2 Jeeps that came behind us that were unable to make it over the bigger "gate keeper" cave-in.

After we went all the way down Sandstone Canyon, and back out, we headed back down Fish Creek Wash to Fish Creek Camp. We arrived just minutes ahead of the heavy rainfall, and as people were airing up, the heavy rain began to fall. So the 3 of us that had planned on camping Saturday night decided to pack it in, and head out. No sense spending all night hunkered down in our tents... Also back at camp, we found ProudRunner (Edwin) who had shown up mere minutes too late, and missed our group as we departed. Sorry Edwin!

I had a great time, and met some great new people that I hope to see at more TTORA runs in the future! I hope all of you guys had fun. For future reference, I guess there won't (can't) be a "moderate" run anymore. The run we did would have been completely doable by a 2WD TRD PreRunner, or stock 4WD. That makes me sad. But like I said - we had a good day anyway!

PICTURES:

[SAR_Squid79]

Originally Posted by Wofh

Not much of a picture taking day but here are a few. Its was fun to meet and hang out with new people.













And the whole album is HERE
A short Vid HERE

.

[weazel]

What canyon is that in pictures 5/6

[weazel]

no reply needed I did not know Sandstone canyon has been reopened.