Red Canyon Trail

Red Canyon Trail, April 19, 2003

Who came: The Iraces and The Schawackers

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Laura Writes:

It's amazing how it is so easy to be courageous when gravity is on your side. Having been an "off-roader" for less than a year and feeling rather bold in a fairly well-equipped new Jeep Liberty Renegade, I am prone to more stupidity than my more experienced counterparts. In January, I did the Arroyo Del Diablo drop off in Anza Borrego without breaking a sweat. But nothing quite compares to the climb out of Red Canyon. Or, should I say the tow?

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A beautiful day started off at lunch time with a cruise down I-10 to Chiraco Summit where we picked up the trail head for Red Canyon Trail. It's a well-marked trail through the Orocopia Wilderness area. Note, this is the same area with the Meccacopia Jeep trail and Will Irace's "slot of doom". Needless to say, it's a challenging area, not far from home, with oodles of natural desert beauty and a fair amount of remoteness. Perfect for an afternoon trip. The trail map says it's a 2 hour drive - we started at noon. After a jaunt through an OHV area that was fairly unoccupied, and a cruise through flat desert crossed with washes, we approached Red Canyon and the trail above it with a fair amount of confidence. The guide describes several blind crests - and they are there - with a few steep hills to traverse. All were handled easily by our party of two - a '93 Bronco and an '02 Liberty - and our crew of 4 kids and 2 sets of parents.

The coordinates for a geocache location brought our attention to a trail that led down a steep cresting hill and drop off that "looked" much less difficult than Del Diablo. We'll call it "Red Canyon Point of No Return". (Of course, we never planned to go back UP Del Diablo.) Plenty of trails existed down in the canyon, but even after an hour of following them, and an opportunity to view the geologic formations up close and personal, we were no closer to an exit. Along the search for an alternate route, we traversed several seemingly impossible hill crests - including one that showed off the entire undercarriage of the vehicles and another with washed out ruts for first the left, then right tires with a 100 foot drop off on each side. Finally, after feeling that it couldn't get any worse, we returned to the point of no return for snacks and to take a breather before heading up the hill.

At this point, we began to hear small arms fire. At the time we didn't guess it, but it was likely to be coming from the nearby military artillery range. We thought it could have been yahoos with heavy hardware - and did not find this to be an encouraging sign. At about the point where discussion turned to what phase the moon was in, I lost patience, loaded up the kids in the car and took the hill. I made it 90% up and got stuck spinning my wheels just before the crest. Five attempts backing halfway down and trying again did not make it better (although unloading the kids to a safe area at the top of the hill after the first attempt did).

The Bronco and its experienced driver (with lower air tire pressure) gave it a whirl and barely made it in one attempt. Wahoo!! Studly driver! Thank goodness he was the same experienced driver who gave us a tow rope for Christmas. It came in handy. Five tow pulls later and the Liberty was over. The tow rope was hosed (we put a hole in it and fused the slip knot in the process of being pulled from the precipice).

Continuing the route to Bradshaw Trail and along the canal was uneventful - although beautiful with glistening sunlight reflecting off the blue green water of the canal and the Salton Sea. After pausing to correct the pressure in our tires at a service station, we arrived home safely in time for dinner at 6:30 pm.

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