Locations in Baja We Need to Visit

In his book "The King's Highway in Baja California", Harry Crosby, mentions finding two very interesting road sections high in the mountains south-east of San Ignacio and south-west of Santa Rosalia (see arrow on the map below for the approximate location). I hope that someday we can locate and document these two locations.

Starting on page 88 we read:


"After a series of sharp and confusing rises and turns we arrived on San Venancio summit at an elevation of 3500 feel. There, quite unexpectedly. we had the most magnificent view of the trip thus far. Without our being aware of it we had ridden to the last eminence at the north end of the Sierra de Guadalupe. From our position on a ridge we had a 180 degree angle view to the north. Below us to the east was a trail winding down to EI Rincon. a rancho. As I understood from Howard Gulick's study of EI Camino Real, he took that trail to be the Cuesta de San Venancio. Beyond, in that direction we could sec the waters of the Gulf. Across our view to the north ran the jagged transverse Sierra de Santa Lucía. Pecking just over the top of that range, but much more distant. was the tip of Cerro de la Vírgen, the tallest of the Tres Vírgenes volcanoes at 6500 feet. Between us and the Santa Lucía range was the Arroyo de Santa Agueda which ran of to the east, ultimately to flow into the Gulf of California just south of Santa Rosalía.It was too much for us to take in all at once. We unloaded the animals which had worked hard to get us up there, then took out maps, old trail accounts and binoculars. I will never forget the thrill and satisfaction it was to be in that place. We had come over a hundred miles from our uncertain start at Loreto, our travel scheme was working at last and perhaps for the first time I really began to feel the scope of EI Camino Real as it once was, and to realize how utterly it differed in every way from any of the lowland routes then in common use.

Up to that point I had considered the whole expedition as an exciting job to be finished so that I might go on to others. I had been so beset with the necessity to make arrangements and to solve problems that I had not really kept things in perspective. Also, in a mere physical sense we had been ploughing across, a broken and confused landscape where we could seldom see any horizon. Somehow. standing on that historic summit and looking out on that wildly colorful volcanic landscape, the course of things was altered for me. I did not really think about such things at the time, but since then I have felt that something important begun there.While Paul and I were communing with our larger surroundings, Guillermo was off scouting. None of us liked the idea that the trail to EI Rincon was our route. It was uncharacteristically narrow and winding and most roundabout for a Jesuit road. Presently Guillermo returned and said he had found the actual old road at a point farther northwest. We followed the ridge some distance from our lookout point until our guide stopped and pointed. Below was a steep descent north-northwest down a draw between two rocky outcroppings. No sign of a trail could be seen. but Guillermo led on. Soon he pointed to unmistakable showings of the old road and we were soon on what proved to be the most beautifully built and preserved cuesta on all of EI Camino Real. Down at least nine hundred feet of elevation, we zigzagged back and forth on that precipitous bajada. No one had passed that way for so long that the path was entirely blocked by growth, and the thorny natives had to be hacked out of our way at every step.

We were led along and beguiled as we went by the old construction on which we trod. It had been cut about three feet wide into the stern stuff of the hillside. Where necessary, walls had been built to retain sections of trail. The turns at the ends of the switchback were shored up by rock construction and all of it was so well done that it had continued to do its appointed job for two hundred years. We marveled at it all the way down. Under the bushes of that slope could be seen a minor but fascinating piece of history. It should be recognized and preserved as long as people care to celebrate the spirit of its builders.


. . .

A Curious Encounter

At the foot of the cuesta we struck off to the northwest down a ridge. Out in the valley in front of us we could see a clearly marked road or trail bearing more northerly than our route. We speculated about it but decided it was headed too far north. That proved to be a mistake as we learned later. Soon the ground became fairly level at 1500 feel below San Venancio summit, where we intersected a well -maintained auto road. According It, Howard Gulick's notes, that should have led to Rancho Candelaria. His version of' El Camino Real continued over a ridge from there to a place called Santa Cruz, where Father Serra had arrived at midday from Guadalupe. We followed the road and soon passed a left turnoff to a rancho called Las Higueras. On the slope of the sierra above the ranch we could see the reason for the name, There was an obvious source of water and a number of large trees, including several of the giant zalates.…

Once we were under way again we faced a formidable obstacle, Cuesta de Candelaria. It was the twin of the Cuesta de los Angeles for steepness and difficulty and required an hour and a half to negotiate its thousand fed. As we made the harrowing ascent I realized how much I had learned and how much I had come to trust mule's agility and good sense.
One thing puzzled us. Since leaving the foot of San Venancio we had not seen any good showings of the old road. We had assumed that the auto road overlaid part of it, but now that we had left it behind there was still no sign. Not once on the cuesta nor indeed at the top did we see a sign that we could interpret as El Camino Real. The only explanation we could find was that the road we had seen going farther north was the correct trail.

At the top we paused a few minutes to rest the beasts and enjoyed a wonderful view to the east. Then we started down the far gentler slope on the other side. In a few minutes we came to one of the great surprises of our trip. Out on that high and deserted valley leading apparently from nothing to nowhere was a wide and massive road hand-made of rocks carefully laid in a pattern of almost Roman sophistication. It appeared from behind a mountain below us. carved deeply into its flank, and charged up the slope on which we stood. Above us it curved over a ridge and disappeared from view. It appeared old but was in marvelous condition, far better than any piece of Jesuit road that we had seen. Paul and I stopped our mounts and gaped at the bewildering sight. Guillermo joined us, and even though he had never been there before, he recognized the work well enough to suggest what proved to be the correct explanation. He said it must be the work of La Compania, properly called EI Boleo."