Anything about Anza Borrego that does not fit into one of the other forums.
Piepkorn slot
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blueskymut Posts: 1
4/11/2010
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Does anyone know any details about Mark Piepkorn of Piepkorn slot? Such as, How did he die?,Where was he from?, How old was he and where is he buried? Thank you for the great site.
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JBHogan Posts: 6
4/6/2022
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Apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but I thought I'd give an update on the current condition of the slot, as of April '22, so anyone searching on the area will have more info.
Last week we traveled northbound from the Dos Cabezas area along the road ending at Jojoba Wash. The damaged memorial is still there, with only a few tokens and coins left.
In our short wheelbase 4x4 Tacoma were able to navigate the slot (which had only one set of faint tire tracks), and thought we were home free, right until the end of the road...
From the plateau above the wash there are three routes down, all sandy descents similar to the one in Canyon Sin Nombre. Unfortunately, the wheelers have destroyed two of the three completely. I'm assuming they head southbound up the slopes with rock-crawler-type jeeps; there are 3 foot vertical drops in several places, some of which have been augmented with large rocks in an attempt to fill the holes. Total suicide.
The third way down is a steep, sandy slope featuring a 90-degree turn halfway down with some large ruts. If one were equipped with lots of technical 4x4 experience and a high clearance, wide-tired Jeep they could probably make it, but we were a little leery of taking the chance, since it was mid-week with no one around to help us right the truck if we rolled it during the turn. After some cussing, we reversed our course and went back the way we came. We made it through the slot "uphill" and continued south.
When we got home, I looked at Google Earth and found there was a "pin" on the slot, listing it as closed...
In a way, turning around was a good thing: we spent the night at Hayden Spring, and in the morning had the good fortune to witness a group of four Bighorn rams grazing in the wash, about 50 meters away. They didn't seem bothered by us and stuck around for about 30 minutes, before casually heading up the rocks and out of sight.
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