 By LOUISE T. WERNER Map by Norton Allen |
"Only if you are in good enough
condition to hike 20 miles a day with a pack, can you hope to make this trip."
This was the advance warning sent out by Sierra Club leaders to members who
wanted to participate in an assault on El Picacho del Diablo, highest peak on
the Lower California peninsula. Fifteen rugged mountaineers signed up for the
trip-and here is the story of their experience in Baja California 125 miles
south of the border. |
| OUR GOAL was El Picacho del Diablo in the San Pedro Martir Range, towering 10,163 feet above sea level and the highest point on the peninsula of Baja California. Not many people have climbed this Peak of the Devil-given its name perhaps because it is so inaccessible, and its slopes so precipitous. Fifteen of us had ventured into the interior of Lower California to make the ascent of ol' Diablo from the west. Our approach was through a primitive wilderness area of magnificent pine-- a forest 40 miles long and 20 miles wide. Between this forest and Diablo peak is Cañon del Diablo, a great gorge 3000 feet deep, and this is | the
barrier which makes the ascent of the peak so difficult. The Sierra Club of California, Los Angeles chapter, had chosen this Baja California region for its Easter vacation outing in 1950. On Sunday, April 2, more than 100 members of the club gathered on the beach at Ensenada, 75 miles south of the Mexican border. On Monday the caravan moved south along the one highway in Lower California, most of them bound for Santa Maria beach, which was to be base camp for the week. At Telmo Junction, 85 miles south of Ensenada, those of us who had chosen to spend our week making an assault on El Picacho del Diablo, left |
the caravan and turned toward the east on a
dirt road for the 31-mile drive to Rancho San Jose where the road ends. It isn't much of a road, but the hospitable Mr. and Mrs. Salvador Meling who own the San Jose ranch had been advised of our coming, and had put seven men at work on the trail to make it passable for our touring cars. Roy Gorin was leader of our mountain-climbing group. Roy is a six footer in his thirties, a veteran of many rugged ascents. His first consideration was the security of his party, and he had given each of us, long in advance, |