BajaXL Day 2 - Diablo Canyon to Bahia De Los Angeles
Starting our second day of adventure!!
Can you imagine waking up in the middle of a dry lake bed surrounded by these mountains?
So ready for another day of fun and excitement. We were going to head towards San Felipe, enjoy some tacos on the beach before heading south.
It was time to pack up and head out through the kilometers of sand tracks. This is the first real test of my upgraded cooling system, thanks 949 Racing for making great parts! We pushed for 4 kms, more of less comfortably pulling 2nd gear and occasionally 3rd until we encountered a tight set of turns trying to avoid a rocky alternate.
Very fun, but also tiring to keep the Miata balancing between choppy or soft sand. Watching engine temps slowly rise from their comfy 204 °F until it began hovering around low 220s. Never overheated, but once I got stuck we needed to pop the hood and let everything cool off. Can’t risk warping a head out here (I don’t have ARP studs yet…).
At this point we met more friends, Chris and family with their Jeep and a few others. Everyone was happy to see the little Miata making it this far and we weren’t done yet. Little bit of digging and some help pushing….we were free and on the move again.
In case your wondering how soft and deep this is….the Miata has 8+ inches of ground clearance on lava.
San Felipe
Time for relaxing on the beach, tacos and cervesas. Not much more to describe here other than highly recommend stopping in and checking out the local water front restaurants. Friendly locals and good food.
Time to put in actual miles
And get stuck a few more times going places a Miata shouldn’t….
First we found some horses south of town and thus had to stop and look. Such a different and unique set of landscape down here.
Wandering around the soft sandy trails was very fun. Eventually we found a warning sign for the trails that 2WD vehicles are not recommended out here. Obviously for good reason as the sand was deep.
Finding fun places to take pictures. ;-)
This place was extremely cool. Seeing years of racing history, looking through the various designs and changes to suspension technology.
Amazing place with an associated resort and beach side view just south of San Felipe. Even requires a bit of driving through sand tracks to get out to it!
Chenowth Courtyard
Running Late
As you can probably guess…. it was getting late in the day and we still had at least 200 km left before camp. Time to make some great time and enjoy the miles. There was only a single checkpoint ahead of us, didn’t have too much to worry even though it would be our first checkpoint on the trip.
Stopping along the way to grab tacos for dinner and snacks in case we didn’t feel like cooking at camp much later in the night.
Last Leg Through A Cacti Forest
Since it was getting dark and we obviously weren’t at camp yet, we decided to turn off road and enjoy mud and cacti in the darkness. One of the coolest experiences, but not recommended unless you are part of a team. There is no easy way out and its many kilometers from any help. In 2021 this was a great place to explore, but there wasn’t any mud. This time around I had to push the little Miata pretty hard slipping and sliding around on the last leg of the track. Never got stuck even though there was almost no traction. Keep rpm up and momentum and everything is swell!
We made it to the road, checked our vehicles for any damage. None found so we proceeded to camp via the last leg of highway. Nothing too exciting. Just eager to get some sleep and out of the drivers seat.
