5-6 December 2009

Smuggler’s Cave 2009 - page 1

Troop 20 made an overnight trek to Smuggler’s Cave located east of San Diego along I-8 and the small town of Jacumba, CA.  We met at the scout room at 7:30AM and were on the road east around 8am.  It was a cool and gray day and when we arrived just off the road at the In-Ko-Pah Park Road Exit on I8 it was very windy.  We drove 0.8mi up the dirt road to a turn out where we parked.  Going on the Trip were Anders, Erik, Kieran, Wig, Kolin, Nick M., Will and Edward. We set up camp near the Smuggler’s cave (our campsite at approximately 32 08 05.15N and 116 05 35.65W)  The cave itself is about 100 yards further to the east.  The wind was blowing!  Setting up camp was a challenge because of the wind and no good place to find a lee, and the stakes didn’t hold well in the decomposed granite.  We used rocks and backpacks to weigh down the tents to keep them from blowing away.

 

 We explored the cave and hiked around on the big bolder covered mount just to the north of us and had lunch at the campsite.  A fire was built out of old dry wood we were able to find.

 

We took an afternoon hike down to the Elliot Mine nearer the border of Mexico on a mount called Tahe.  We did some overland navigation with map and compass and found ourselves on the main dirt road headed down there.  The climb up the mount gave us a magnificent views all around.  To the north the inland mountains and the desert.  To the south we saw Valley of the Moon, an amazing place that looks like Joshua National Park.  The mine entrances were cool to look at, although we stayed clear for safety.

 

We got back to the campsite and got cooking just before the winter sun set around 4:50pm.  The forecast called for lots of wind and a 30% chance of rain.

 

 With darkness coming so soon, we all were in bed by 7:30pm and slept poorly through the night as the tents shook violently.  Sometimes we were amazed that the aluminum poles on our tents weren’t snapping as they were bending over so far under the wind.  It rained just a bit overnight.

 

We got up with the sun with the wind still blowing full force – clouds racing to the east.  The sunrise was an incredible show of color as the clouds churned as the sun came up.  We packed up and hiked out without breakfast to beat any rain and stopped in Alpine at Janet’s Montana Café for a big breakfast before getting back to the scout room around 10:00am.