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Squaw Tit, Table Mountain and 10 other Benchmarks

mrkmc

Posts: 87

10/20/2012

mrkmc

Posts: 87

Did some hiking/ driving in the desert this weekend. First stop was in the Jacumba area to several benchmarks, Squaw Tit and Table Mountain. Fairly uneventful other than a run in with the boarder patrol. I was on my was to the Puto Benchmark, which happens to be a few hundred feet from where the border fence comes to an end. I was about 50' below the benchmark when an agent drove up. I pretended I didn't see him and just kept hiking up. I was nearly to the BM when he summoned me on the loud speaker to "please come down here so I can talk to you" I knew I had every right to be in the area, it is BLM. I was pretty sure he was just going to give me the speech about how dangerous the area is. I was only about 1 minute from reaching the BM so I yelled down to him that "I was just out hiking and I was going to continue onto the BM then come down". I turned my back and continued up. A few seconds later he came back on the loud speaker and asked me to come down. It didn't really sound like and order, so I kept heading up and found the BM. I made sure I stayed in view of him so he wouldn't think I was running away, took a pic of the BM, took a pic him by my truck then started down. Took me about 5 minutes to get back down, where he walked over and met me at the base of the hill. He asked what I was doing and I explained. Surprisingly he didn't scold me for continuing up after he told me to come down. As I suspected he was just checking to see what I was doing so close to the border, and especially right where the fence comes to and end. He told me how dangerous it was around there and I shouldn't be there. I told him I planned to hike to several more BM's in the area that day and appreciated that he was paying attention. So after hiking/ driving to Jade, Puto, Tahe, Gold and Nopal, I drove over to Mica Gem Road and crossed under the I-8. I hiked up to Squaw Tit and Table Mountain. This is a nice area and I like the red rocks and soils. After that I headed in to ABDSP and found a spot to camp, made dinner, took a few pictures and went to bed.

The next morning I got up at sunrise to start hiking to several Benchmarks in the Blair Valley area. First up was Rego Benchmark. This is a great little "peak" with good views of Blair Valley and Granite Mountain. The summit area and northeast slope looked to be recently burned. After Rego, I headed off for Seyer and Box BM's. The area just above Box Canyon next to the highway was also recently burned. I was quite surprised to find the survey tower at the Seyer BM still fully intact. I usually just find pieces of wire and wood all around but this one was still standing. I traversed over to Box BM, found the register then dropped down into Box Canyon. I found the skull of something. Maybe a Coyote, I am not sure. Also saw a bee hive in a hole in the canyon wall. Next up was Quake and Shake BM's over in Blair Valley. Nothing to exciting here, but the area was deserted. Didn't really see many people out at all this weekend, except for the 20+ cars belonging to hunters I saw parked along San Felipe Road.

All of the pictures can be seen on my picasa page.