South of the border, down Baja way, sits a big peak known as Picacho del Diablo. At 10,154′ elevation, it is the paterfamilias of all Baja peaks – nothing else is even close. It had been on my radar for some time, so I was excited when my friend John suggested we should go climb it together.

There are two main routes that are used to climb Picacho. One involves starting near sea level on the Sea of Cortez, then driving west into the San Felipe desert to finally park at the roadhead at around 2,000′. From there, you make your way to and then up a long canyon, namely Cañon del Diablo, to a camp at 6,300′, then up to the summit from there. The second route is quite different. For it, you drive south from Ensenada on the Pacific coast for about 90 miles, then east up into high country to eventually park at 8,130′. From there, you head cross-country to reach the head of Cañon del Diablo, then drop down into it to the aforementioned camp at 6,300′, thence to the summit. No matter how you slice it and dice it, it turns out to be about the same amount of climbing either way.

So, back to John. He had tried the climb before with some girl via the canyon route from sea level. She had become disgusted with his over-abundance of attitude and announced, while deep in the canyon, that he could go screw himself, and she was going home. That tidbit of knowledge should have raised a red flag for me right there. No worries, though. John kept talking about a trip to Picacho, but never could get his act together to go. Finally, I grew tired of his excuses and decided to go it alone.

My big day finally arrived – May 7, 1990. I drove out of Tucson at 5:30 A.M. and, 375 miles later, crossed into Mexico at Tecate, in the state of Baja California. So far, so good. Then came a scare. I had driven most of the 80-odd miles south from Tecate to the city of Ensenada. While driving down a steep highway out of the mountains, as I approached the coast, an un-marked SUV with flashing lights came up behind me and signaled for me to pull over. Not only were there no markings on the vehicle, it had no license plates. Once stopped, two men in plain clothes stepped out and began to question me. I wouldn’t exactly say they were aggressive, but certainly suspicious. They wanted to know where I was headed. When I told them I was heading south to go climb Picacho, they were somewhat incredulous. Alone? How could that be? I took out my maps and showed them in detail how I was planning to drive down there, then my planned climbing route. They asked to see inside the camper shell on the back of my truck and, once satisfied that I had nothing other than camping gear back there, they seemed to relax. Perhaps they were disappointed that they had no reason to rip me off or fine me, but when they saw that I was harmless, they let me proceed.

Just in case I couldn’t easily find unleaded gasoline in Baja, I had filled up back in El Centro, California and also had 8 extra gallons in two metal gas cans. Back then, it wasn’t so easy to find unleaded gas in Mexico. Fortunately, I was able to fill up with Pemex Extra in Ensenada. Once I left that city and headed south on Highway 1, I didn’t see the ocean again. The drive down the peninsula was through pretty country, very mountainous. Near the 140-KM marker on the highway, I turned east on to a lesser paved road marked “Observatorio”. It was now 5:00 P.M.

It was one awful, bone-jarring road. Just past KM 49, a lesser road turns off to the right and goes to the historic Rancho San José, founded in 1907 by the Meling family. This 10,000-acre cattle ranch has guest facilities and offers hiking and pack trips to the high country. As you leave the chaparral of the lower regions, you first enter a piñon-juniper zone, with piñon pines, junipers and oaks, then a zone where the dominant trees are Coulter pine, Jeffrey pine, lodgepole pine, sugar pine, incense cedar, white fir and quaking aspen. The rare San Pedro Martir cypress, endemic to this area, is found in a few isolated locations, the largest known individual having a trunk circumference of fifteen feet.

I entered Parque Nacional San Pedro Martir at the 78 KM mark, at 6,850′. The park headquarters can be found there. Established in 1947, the park encompasses 155,670 acres. A fellow opened the gate for me (there was no fee to pay) and made me feel welcome. Not a lot of people were visiting the park back then. It was reported that during Easter vacation in 1986, not over a dozen visitors were in the entire park. I continued on to KM 91, then parked in a meadow at about 8,130′ elevation. It had taken a full 3 hours of driving from Highway 1. A can of salmon made a good supper, and I turned in for the night. Nobody else was there, so I had the place to myself. The only sound was the wind sighing in the trees, lulling me to sleep. I had been on the road for a full 15 hours that day. It froze overnight, plainly visible from the frost on the ground the next morning.

Day 2.  

I slept in, enjoying some extra shut-eye. Remember those gas cans I had brought? The damn things leaked a bit in the back of my truck yesterday, so this morning I poured their contents into my gas tank, then stashed them in some brush to air out. To this day, I’ve never met a gas can that wouldn’t leak if given half a chance. I continued driving past the KM 94 marker, then was able to go another 3 KM, where I parked at the end of the road in a really nice spot. I readied my pack, which was way bigger than I would have liked, then locked the truck up, keeping my fingers crossed that nobody would break in or steal it.

I started walking up an arroyo, staying in it as it meandered in a southeasterly direction. An hour later, at about 8,330′ elevation near an aspen grove, the arroyo steepened. Ducks were common as route markers until the other side of the grove. My path took me to a saddle at 8,610, passing close by Scout Peak, which I did not climb. Once past the saddle, I dropped back down into the arroyo at 8,450′ elevation, continuing east. I stopped for lunch at 8,750′, 2 hrs. 30 min. after leaving my truck.. I was passing through beautiful evergreen forests, seeing all kinds of trees I had never seen before. Finally, I reached a point on a ridge to the north of Cerro Botella Azul (“Blue Bottle Peak”, which I’m guessing was named after the fly). There I was at 9,240′, where I had my first view of Picacho del Diablo. A series of bare white peaks runs south from Picacho, swerving west to the rounded, brown, tree-covered Botella Azul which sits on the eastern edge of the escarpment. This crescent-shaped ridge, known as Pinnacle Ridge, is a difficult and waterless technical route to Picacho, and it looked deadly. Waaay out of my league.

Four hours out from the truck, I found Blue Bottle Wash, a major wash strewn with white boulders to the northeast of Blue Bottle Peak. The wash marked the contact face between the brown and white granites, and I knew it would be the easiest descent route into Cañon del Diablo. I found the wash by contouring across the steep north side of Cerro Botella Azul. Down I went. Man, that was one huge canyon – it seemed to go on forever. In places, it was steep and slow, with some rough Class 3 downclimbing required to get around some waterfalls. At around 7,500′, Gorin’s Gully came from the southwest into the main canyon. It is reported that Gorin’s is an another descent route into Cañon del Diablo as an alternative to the Blue Bottle route I was taking, but only if you like problems – they say it is trying, time-consuming and extremely steep. You need a rope, a few nuts and some carabiners, because there are several short pitches of Class 5 downclimbing.

There was a rough path of sorts that I was able to follow much of the way down the canyon. Finally, I reached what they call Cedar Oak Camp at 6,600′, but it didn’t appeal at all. Continuing on, I soon reached Campo Noche at 6,300′. This was a nice spot, with a level place to set up my tent. There was plenty of fresh running water, and even a small pool big enough to soak in.

It had taken me 2 1/4 hours to descend from Cerro Botella Azul to Campo Noche. The campsite was really nice, and there were some huge, honest-to-goodness cedar trees, something we don’t see in the Arizona desert. Not a bad day, really, with a total time of 6 1/4 hours for the journey from my truck to Campo Noche. I had hours of daylight left, so mostly I just lounged around, taking it easy. I lost the sun early on, though, as the canyon was so deep. Scouting around a bit, I was able to find the start of the climbing route for the morrow. I was excited. What bits of information I’d been able to gather about the route were just enough to give me confidence that I could pull it off. It would be a long, challenging day, but at least I wouldn’t be carrying a heavy load. A light day pack was all I’d bring. Back at the truck, I’d decided to only bring camping gear, no climbing gear of any kind, so I needed to find the right route to the summit, without serious technical difficulties. I had almost 4,000 vertical feet of climbing to do in order to reach the summit, I was alone in unfamiliar territory, and there was nobody to rescue my sorry ass if I got into trouble. All of this I pondered as darkness set in and an uneasy sleep overtook me.

Please stay tuned for Picacho del Diablo Part 2.

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