October 26, 2015

We headed south along Hwy. 1 until we got to the turnoff to Parque Nationale Sierra de San Pedro Martir, the National Park of St. Peter the Martyr. At the turnoff it’s hot, dry, sandy, rocky desert loaded with cactus but as we climbed in elevation there was a remarkable change to cool, woodlands with giant Ponderosa pine. The park has the highest point on Baja California at 3,078 meters (10,098 ft.). When we arrived at the campground it is cool and refreshing with that wonderful scent of pine in the air.

This is our first night of camping and we’re pretty much the only ones in the Park other than the ranger and a few people working to improve the roads within the Park. We picked a campsite and immediately donned hiking shoes and day-packs, grabbed our hiking poles and took off on one of the trails.

After a few hours we returned to camp cooked our dinner and crawled into our sleeping bags in the truck. Before we left Ann sewed some removable mosquito netting and Velcro to fit our side windows so we had a comfortable, bug free night with great ventilation!

The next morning we headed for the highest point in the Park, El Picacho del Diablo, The Peak of the Devil. The road ended at one of two observatories in the park which are still in use today although my limited Spanish kept me from understanding exactly what they were used for.

From one of the observatories we could look out and see the peak which didn’t look too far but a man at the observatory told us it’s a 3 day hike there and back.

We didn’t have the food for such a journey so we decided that just looking at it would suffice.