Calcite Mine and Slot Canyon

Getting There:

            Jen and I sort of planned a route in advance, to avoid getting lost. Unfortunately, that planning did not stop Scott from shouting about buying me a GPS every couple of minutes as Jen uneasily guessed at directions from the pages torn out of our Mom’s Thomas Brothers’.  In the end, we took the 8 out to the 79, drove through Cuyamaca, hit up the 2 to connect us to the 22, and DID find our desired location without getting lost.

             Along the way, our poor dog, Kali, got carsick. If you know us, you know that Kali has learned to open the back door so it should not be a big shocker to learn that earlier in the day, she managed to slam her own paw in the car door. Ok, not really, but someone would have you believe it was her own fault, so the poor thing was stuck in the back of the Jeep, on winding roads, with an injured paw. The circumstances culminated in dog vomit on Scott’s backpack-oops! Who put that back there with the dog?- and a quick stop to clean up in Julian.  As we wound our way down Banner Grade, Jen offered to sympathetically vomit when we discovered that Kali had again been sick. Thankfully, Kali declined the offer, and we continued on our way.

            Big kudos to Jerry Schad for telling us that there is a parking lot for our planned hike at mile-marker 38 on S-22. We definitely would have missed it if we were not looking for that mile-marker. However, Mr. Schad, I feel as if your editors dropped the ball on this hike. To begin with, I would have loved to know what side of the road we were going to find this mystery parking lot on. The other big editorial oversight….well, I’ll get to that one later, because it resulted in DRAMA!

The Hike:

            After driving two and a half hours-oh yeah, you read that right, we crammed two adults, Scott, a toddler, and a dog into the Jeep for a nearly three hour drive and all survived the experience- we were happy to stretch our legs. Kali was so relieved I thought she might rear up on her hind legs and dance… or, perhaps, simply learn how to hug us? Thankfully, she didn’t try to kiss us with her vomit-mouth. Why is dog vomit frothy? Anyone out there able to solve that mystery for me?

            The hike begins by dropping down from the view-point pullout onto a well-worn Jeep road on the desert floor. Logan ran down the hill, holding his aunt’s hand, and likely singing in joy. Kali was still a little unsteady, but her limp, from the aforementioned self-inflicted wound, was finally gone. The first part of the hike rises and falls on the old Jeep road. The total elevation gain and loss from the hike is 800 feet, so it is a paltry climb, half that of Cowles Mountain; that didn’t stop Scott from asking, “does this hill ever end?” Within the first half mile, we were hearing a refrain of “how much longer,” from our slowest hiker… and I’m definitely not referring to the toddler.

            The ultimate destination of this hike is the Calcite Mining area. During World War II, the mine supplied optical grade calcite for gun and bomb sights. There is a display at the trailhead that supplies some information about the mine, and I regurgitated that information to my hiking partners as we walked. Apparently, they had been more interested in the amazing view from the trailhead, as opposed to systematically memorizing the text on the display. To each their own. 

            As Logan’s interest flagged, I enticed him to keep walking with a promise of treasure at the end. Logan quickly translated “treasure” to “gold” and asked if he could steal the gold from the “minders” at the Calcite Mine. I tried, my very best, to explain that strip mining does not involve the cavernous mines that he saw in Oregon. That, my few readers, did not work out well. Even less effective was convincing him that there were no more “minders” here. Even my excuse that “minders” got to go home on weekends did not work. Every hiker who passed us became a “minder” intent on finding the “Calcite gold” before us.

            Hey sister, remember that hike where you filled Dad’s backpack with iron railroad spikes? Yeah, you know the one. Well, Logan filled his pockets, my pockets, and part of the dog-vomit backpack with “Calcite Gold” treasure. I couldn’t help but think of that railroad hike.

LOGAN SHOWING OFF HIS "CALCITE GOLD"

The Slot Canyon: Take One

            Afoot and Afield in San Diego recommends taking a little detour at around 1.5 miles. Here, you turn north, into a slot canyon. This is the canyon that defined this hike for me as a kid. Where my sister remembers the mining site and area around it, I remembered the curving walls and caved in boulders that are characteristic of this awesome example of a slot canyon. 

 JEN CARRYING THE VOMIT BACKPACK AND WEARING THE AWESOME SALMON SHIRT

THIS SHOULD DEF BE OUR CHRISTMAS CARD!

           Logan did not need any motivation to scurry along this path, poking his head into small outlets and climbing over minor impediments. Then, as he rushed around a corner, we heard “OH NO!” Those are never words you want to hear from the mouth of a three year old, but this time they were rather comical. 

When we caught up to our speed-hiking toddler, we discovered a minor boulder impediment. And by minor, I mean I nearly died climbing up it. Ok, to be fair, I’ve never been skilled at climbing, or, frankly, not falling. There are scars on my legs that tell stories of me falling down hillsides and impaling my shins on sticks, among other tales. Jen scurried up the boulder no problem. We handed Logan and Kali up, again, no problem. Then it was my turn. I started to climb, and Scott decided I needed a push. Well, he pushed me the wrong way, and I barely clung to the boulder, coughing, sputtering, and kicking my cold into high gear. End result: one near-death experience and Logan’s newfound habit of hunching over the ground and mimicking mommy whenever he needs to cough.

            The path up the slot canyon ends in a couple of stacked boulders that blocked our way out. Supposedly, skilled climbers can find their way out through this canyon. We, obviously, are not skilled climbers and turned around to hike back out. Kali was proving to be a great hiking dog so we let go of her leash. This was the best plan ever, because Logan chased that dog for the rest of the hike. At one point, afraid she would trip over a bed of rocks, Logan shouted “Kali, watch were you’re goin…..” THUNK! Yeah, he face-planted as he warned Kali to watch were she was going.

            Notably, Scott spent a long time in the slot canyon wondering aloud about where all of the calcite was, if this chasm was, indeed, a calcite mine. You know, he has lived in San Diego for a long time now, and has been a part of my family for almost as long, and sometimes I forget that he doesn’t know San Diego. This was, really, his first trip to Anza Borrego, unless we count that time that he walked 50 feet and threw up, so yeah, lets call it his first time in Anza Borrego. He believed me when I ran out of ways to explain strip mining and let Logan believe that the slot canyon was THE mine. It took a few comments like “Chris, I’m not seeing much calcite here” for me to realize that I’d hoodwinked not only the toddler, but also the husband. Now that I’ve embarrassed my husband, let me embarrass myself!

“From Wiener, to Bigger Wiener, to Complete Wiener, to Little Winner”           

            My sister, in addition to providing the awesome pictures for this entry, also provided that sub-title for this section. She inspired this section by continually calling me a wiener as I tried, and failed, to gather the courage to jump off a rock. There is generally a point in the climbing gym that Jen is yelling at me that I am only four feet off the ground and I need to stop being a “wiener” and just climb. This time, she was telling me to stop being a “wiener” and just “JUMP gosh darn it!” 

SCOTT IS ABOUT TO MOON US, I THINK...

In retrospect, this rock may have been the same one that inspired my near-death experience on the way up. As the pictures show… it isn’t even close to being terrifying, but it certainly reduced me to “wiener” status. I tried, and tried, and tried to jump down. Each time, I managed to wedge myself between the rock and the wall and push myself back up instead of dropping the few feet. 

PUSHING MYSELF BACK UP

When, eventually, I jumped simply because I could not take the chorus of “wiener” emanating not only from my sister, and husband, but also the toddler, and the dog (who can now not only slam her own paw in the car door, but also speak in German/English apparently), I discovered that this was no victory, that rock is in fact, barely off the ground! It was a true FML moment.

CONQUERING THE ROCK!

Back to the Main Hike

            The last half-mile up to the mining site is not noteworthy. To the northeast of the mine itself, is an awesome, pockmarked rock. Locomotive Rock, as it is called, was a little steep for us to bring Logan up, and we were worried about the time. We chose to have a little picnic at the road end instead and let Logan fill some more pockets—you know, those back ones, that toddlers never see--with “calcite gold,” and then turned back.

DON'T YOU JUST LOVE HER "CREEPER" GLASSES!

The Slot Canyon: Take Two

Now we get to the beginning of the end, and the drama, and my issue with Jerry Schad’s editors. The book recommends turning south at the same spot where we had headed north before to explore the slot canyon. This brought us into another end of the same canyon. Supposedly, at the end of the canyon, there would be a place to turn right and reconnect with the old Jeep road. I have a hunch that there isn’t an actual trail to turn right on, but you are supposed to turn right anyways, and the guide left that detail out.

            In any case, we must have missed the right turn that the book mentions because then there was the part where we got lost in the desert, in the dark, with a tired toddler...

CHECK OUT LOGAN'S TRIUMPHANT FIST PUMP!