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Talk about a trip you took out to Anza Borrego

24 hour traverse of ABSP Messages in this topic - RSS

DHeuschele
DHeuschele
Posts: 87


1/30/2017
DHeuschele
DHeuschele
Posts: 87
My 14 year old son led a 24 hour traverse of ABSP this weekend. There were 7 people who had planned to do the entire route and all 7 finished (one person had planned to do the first 10 miles then hike out the 10 miles solo). There were some route issues. We missed the 2nd water drop (second of only two) all together. We also did maybe 5 additional miles due to the route issues. But no serious injuries (some cactus wounds) and,even with the route issues, the hike finished in under 24 hours.

I may post more details later.
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DHeuschele
DHeuschele
Posts: 87


1/31/2017
DHeuschele
DHeuschele
Posts: 87
Route: We started at pinyon canyon trail just off highway. Our first water stash was just past the squeeze. Maybe 1 to 2 miles after hapaha flats we went up an east trending ridge I would guess 300' gain. This was the first ridge on left that was attainable after hitting the canyon. We followed the ridge a short ways, maybe 0.5 miles. This is where our route differed from the plan. We intended to get in an East trending wash after a duration of ups and downs and hook into north fork fish creek where our second water stash was. This planned route would have been ~30 miles with ~2 miles off trail. Instead we got a south East wash that we climbed out of for scouting a few times but the route to where we wanted to be was badland like (full of deep washes to cross - would have resulted in many ups and downs). The south east trending wash merged with a north south wash. We were now significantly south or where we wanted to be. We sent scouts north and south. The north wash quickly petered out. The south wash would hit the main fork of fish creek wash road. So we decided to go further South. We hit the road 1.5 miles due south of our second water stash. We calculated about 6 miles to water stash following the road (requiring backtrack going west on north fork of fish creek) or 8 miles to vehicles parked at the start of fish creek road. We did a water survey. 1 person was short, 5 were about ideal for the finish and two had basically 2 quarts having started with 3 quarts at the squeeze (so they had way more water than they would need). We distributed water to the person short. We decided to skip the water drop and go to car. Wrong route I suspect was ~35 miles with maybe 5 miles off trails but some of that was in good wash.

After the trip I looked at the pictures my son had and know that if I was navigating I would not have stayed in the south east trending wash. During the trip I had not looked at those pictures and was hoping for an easier route than what we kept finding when we climbed out of a wash for a look. The issue was by the time we did this scoutingvwe were already too far south. The east traverse is to happen as soon as you come down the ridge. Once you go a little ways south you are in badlands.

We slept at cars and the next morning fetched our water stash.

As is typical on these types of trips there are some side stories that are interesting.

Summary: planned route ~30 miles with 2 miles off trail. Actual route used ~35 miles with ~5 miles off trail but these 5 in general were not as rough as the two planned).
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