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The DEvil's Road

"The Devil's Road" Main Expedition, Day 45

Guest blog by Associate Producer Bri Bruce

Awake before the others, Papa and I decided to go for a drive to see the area. We headed north toward La Pastora, through a sparsely built area, then drove out to a beach where several cars (including a school bus that had been converted to an RV) were parked in the sand. There were several surfers in the water beyond the rocky beach and we stood watching them for a while, noting they were wearing wetsuits in the much cooler water. We returned south, heading for Pescadero, and wound through the hills and dirt roads there, stopping at another beach, this time deserted. ATV tracks scarred the beach, not a person in sight. The beach was not conducive to swimming—or surfing—as the step beach caused the waves to double over and break right on the shore.

Continuing south again, we came to Cerritos, taking a dirt road from Mex19 to the ocean. Between the two large hotels on the stretch of beach, we found a smaller road that dead-ended into a series of tents and umbrellas. There were vendors selling hats and jewelry, tourists lounging about in beach chairs. Several stands of surfboards were propped up, with signs reading “Rentals” and “Lessons.” After doing a quick scan of the boards, and talking to a few of the people offering rentals, I found a stand to come back to tomorrow.

After a late breakfast back at the complex, JT and Papa left to film on the bikes, so Heidi, Jade, and I walked around Todos Santos’s historic district to visit a few museums and galleries. We stopped for some fresh fruit with chili and lime at the mission before heading back to plan the rest of the trip’s filming. 

"The Devil's Road" Main Expedition, Day 22

El Arco to San Ignacio

JT and I bid farewell to Greg and Guy and we turned our front tires for Vizcaino. Leading out of town is one small dirt road signaled by a hand painted and very faded sign. I glanced at the GPS and thought the 22 miles would go by fast as the road was very easy on our bikes. Not more than a mile into the trip, patches of sand began to appear. At first they were very short stretches and not to terrible. These sand patches began to appear more and more frequently, were of longer duration, and had deeper sand. I found myself gripping the bars tighter and tighter. The strain and discomfort in my muscles of my shoulders began to creep in and I felt like one large, knotted ball of fibers.

The only relief came when we would hit good stretches of road and I could relax a bit. On one of these, I was admiring the desert beauty when I hit a patch of sand, did the swerving thing several times as I tried to right myself, then slowed to about two miles per hour and lost control of the bike. I was pitched from the bike into the sandy road, luckily completely unharmed. I stood up, looked at the bike for damage (none), then looked for JT. All I saw was a dust cloud. The desert swallowed him up.

I quickly righted the bike and set off to find JT. We have a rule about trails. When one arrives at a fork, he is to stop and wait for the other. I arrived at a section that split off into three roads all seemingly paralleling the others. JT was not there. Which one did he take? Why didn't he stop and wait for me? Which one should I take? My mind raced.

In the Baja desert, it is very common for the locals to "make" their own side road so as to get off of the ruts, washboards, and deep sand. Maybe this was the case here? Nelson and Goldman were expert trackers and it is well recorded that their tracking abilities had saved their lives several times. So, thinking like them, I dismounted and set about to find JT's tracks. There were several other bikers on the road previous to us and we had marveled about how they were able to negotiate the sand pockets.

The tread patterns on our bikes are strikingly different, however, and it didn't take too long before I found which road JT had taken. It was the road on the far right. Interestingly, the middle and right roads did rejoin and that was the correct road to Vizcaino. If we had taken the road to the left, who knows where we would be.

It took a while, but we managed to get back to the highway and into Vizcaino for Kenny's Fish Tacos. We arrived at noon, just the right time for the best fish tacos in all of Baja. When we saw that Kenny's taco truck was not where it was always parked, we noted a new store and parking lot in its place. We set out to drive up and down to main road in town to find him, but struck out. He wasn't at his house either. Bummer!

We settled for tacos from another vendor nearby and made the decision to push on to San Ignacio. The wind was blowing at about 20 knots, dust was being kicked up, and we were tired. San Ignacio it was.

We found a room at the Desert Inn amid the beautiful date palms and lagoons. We needed a shower, means to charge all of our cameras and electronics, and to download and send data. Well, the power was out in the entire pueblo. No power to charge equipment. This also meant no water, since most of the town relies on pumps for their water.

We were saved several hours later and we proceeded to take care of business.

Guest Blog: "The Devil's Road" Main Expedition, Day 8 - Part 2

Guest Blog by Eric Bruce

The eighth day of the expedition consisted of relocating the entire Bruce clan from San Felipe, at the coast of the Sea of Cortez, to Mike’s Sky Ranch in the mountains of the Sierra San Pedro Martir at about 4,000 feet elevation.  After waiting (patiently) for JT to run back to the airport to get his riding jacket from the plane and then waiting (impatiently) for Scott to learn how to file a flight plan to exit Mexico in a couple of days, we left our lodging and headed west at about 10 am.  I am Eric Bruce, slightly older brother of Todd Bruce, and my job today was to provide transportation for the support crew.  There were just four of us, but we loaded the Honda Pilot until almost full.  For those of you who’ve ever seen how Scott and Lauri pack, especially when they fly their own plane and space isn’t an issue, you can well imagine.

We traveled on nice highways for almost two hours, passing through one military checkpoint at the intersection of Highways 3 and 5, and stopped at a long stretch of remote road to film Todd and JT on their bikes.  My Honda Pilot has a sunroof and it turns out that Lauri’s slim figure was perfect for standing up in the back seat, poking her upper body out the roof, and filming in any direction.  So, we stopped at a turnout to get the camera from JT and drove several miles down the road while Lauri got some close-up footage of the bikers – we’d follow, then pass, then get in front, then they’d pass us, and we did this a few times so JT could have some footage to choose from.  He seemed happy, so we gave him back the camera and he put it all back into its protective case mounted to the back of his Kawasaki.  It was then he said something like, “Oh, sh*t, I think I dropped the two locks for the camera case!” He figured he put them on the bike’s storage box and probably just drove off.  So, we returned to the prior turnout and found the locks no worse for wear – one was at the end of the turnout and the other didn’t fall off for several hundred yards and was sitting in the middle of the highway.  Didn’t I read something like that earlier?  I hope this isn’t a recurring theme for their trip to the cape– equipment on the highway!

Getting to Mike’s Sky Ranch was 22 miles of dirt road – most of it was pretty nice and we barely bottomed out once, but a few steep parts tested the transmission of the Honda.  Of course, the dirt bikes were the perfect vehicle for this road.  We really had only one minor issue along the way. Despite my really amazing packing job, we heard a pretty loud cracking or popping noise and within seconds we all noticed the distinctive smell of tequila. I stopped and opened the back hatch and I feared that 3 L bottle of 100% agave juice might have broken, or spilled.  I didn’t pack it on its side, did I?  Of course not – turns out the cork had popped from the elevation change and we didn’t lose a drop. 

We managed to make it just fine to Mike’s and were happy to see the place had a swimming pool!  Problem was, we couldn’t see the bottom of the pool, so nobody was willing to go in.  We made a nice lunch for ourselves poolside and immediately rigged our fly rods and started walking up the San Rafael River in search of the Nelson trout.  Our major goal in Sierra San Pedro Martir was to catch and photograph a local trout with its unique markings.  

Despite Scott proposing that Todd be given the honor of catching the first Nelson trout (and he practically railroaded the vote by insisting on Robert’s Rules of Order), we really only gave Todd one pool to fish by himself before we all wet our lines and started drifting files down the river.  Within an hour, Todd whistled for JT to come film the fish he had on his line and JT ran with his camera to film.  There is some footage that proves it was a fish and probably proves it was a Nelson trout, but the fish slipped from Todd’s hand before a close-up could be obtained.  Wahoo, there are fish in this river, Captain!  About the same time, Scott strolls up to say he caught a fish, too, but he has no photographic evidence.  Unlike Todd’s fish, it did not have the characteristic blue spots with the crimson red stripe running behind the spots along the entire lateral line of the fish.  About a half-hour later, I caught a fish and was able to get a photo that clearly shows the same marking as Todd’s fish, plus the characteristic white tip on both the dorsal and ventral fins.  It, too, was unmistakably a Nelson trout.  And I’m sure you’ll be impressed that the total length of the three fish was AT LEAST 13 inches!  Two fours and a five.  Our goal has been met, technically.

Now, we’re not sure whether there is any established world record for size of a Nelson trout, but due to its very narrow range of habitat, we figure there likely isn’t one.  So, our new goals for tomorrow are to catch and release more fish (we plan to go further upstream as there are stories of larger pools of water that might hold larger fish), get one for Wayne and Lauri, get better video documentation, and establish a world record size.  For the Devil’s Road record, it was Todd who got the 5-incher!  Just what Dad had predicted.  In the meantime, Lauri made a really nice painting of the nearby mountains and enjoyed her day on strike (some woman’s acknowledgment thing that some of the guys couldn’t really get behind).  She ended her day of leisure with a meal cooked by Mike’s staff that included a piece of grilled beef the size of South America (OK, I meant shape).

Thank you for following this Baja adventure, and thanks to the entire film crew for letting me join in the effort. 

We've Embarked on "The Devil's Road"

Dear Contributors;

This morning the film crew set off on their two-month expedition through Baja California. We would like to extend an invitation to follow along with the crew during the trek. Your interest in our project and donation is of great value to us and we want to make sure you have all the information about our progress. The crew will be using a personal GPS locator device from SPOT. We will ping, via satellite, their location on a regular basis and you can follow along as we film.

The Baja desert is not well connected. Cell towers are very limited. The crew will take every opportunity to keep you up to speed with blog posts, photo drops, website updates, and a sharing page with our SPOT pings on a Google Earth map. As our crew arrives in a town with cell coverage, they will have access to communicate. Please remember that there may be several days’ delay for a reply.

Please follow along with our progress on:

Website: www.brokenwagonfilms.com
Share Page URL: http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0YbMGi6kc6FtblFInMNMTf16r4S92USyb

If you want to communicate with our riders, you can do so by:

Text only:  831-601-6320
Phone and leave voicemail:  408-206-6144
Or, by email:  brokenwagonfilms@gmail.com

We look forward to connecting with you when we return and as we transition into the post-production phase of our project.

Thank you again;

Todd Bruce
Producer