This is a reworked Trip Report originally posted on the Anza Borrego Forum on April 6th, 2014
This morning I had a chance to see some rugged ridgeline and amazing views. Parked at north base of Tule Mtn near Sacatone Spring in McCain Valley and started off about 6:30 am. Climbed Tule Mountain and followed its NE ridge over a bump & down through a valley to a peak overlooking Carrizo Gorge. I dropped down a steep main ridgeline from there to the Carrizo streambed where I turned north. I turned up a canyon just before Goat Canyon which led to an old workcamp, then a ridge over a tunnel and straight up the spine of the Jacumba mountains. It took a lot of climbing to stay on that ridge all the way to Jacumba Mtn where I stopped for lunch at 12:15.
The return was pretty tough as I just beelined it back to the gorge. There were a lot of canyons and little ridges to cross before I got close enough to the gorge to pick a ridge to descend. My first choice cliffed out after I had descended quite a ways and had to climb all the way back up to traverse across to another ridge. That one was steep but it worked and after some bushwacking through the tamerisk I was climbing back out of the gorge. I picked a ridge just south of my earlier descent and followed it straight up to Tule by 4:15
I stopped often and saw some really cool stuff but man, that gorge ain’t easy to get across.
Stats:
Distance———13 Miles
Elapsed Time—-9 Hours, 49 Minutes
Elevation Gain–7,099 Feet
impatienthiker 