We began our drive into the desert around 7am using a Toyota Forerunner. Our drive on the dirt roads leading to the parking area, however, was not without incident, unfortunately. Our driver took a wrong turn at a fork and we ended up sinking our back wheels into some ridiculously soft sand. A terrible sight indeed, when the top of your vehicle's back wheels are at the point of level ground. After an hour of finding large enough rocks, some brush and lots of digging, we finally made it out - but still, with the assistance of our tag along friend's Ford F-150 and a small rope. One hour gone and time wasted on a day we knew was going to be hot.
We reached our parking place, grabbed our gear and started our 2 hour hike to the canyon. Ten or so years ago I had done this same hike with my father, uncle and a next door neighbor. I knew where we were going and I was bubbling with anticipation. Would it still be there? Would it look just as austere and sublime as I remembered it? I was hoping for the best.
An hour and a half into our hike, we walked around that last mountain corner and there it was off in the distance. Still standing as proud as it did the day it was finished back in 1923. At 186 feet tall and 750 feet long, the Goat Canyon Trestle still remains to this day, the longest, tallest curved wooden trestle ever built in the United States.
Named for the large, bighorn sheep that thrive here in such desert desolation, the construction of the San Diego & Arizona Eastern Railroad began during World War I in the steep-walled Carrizo Gorge near the town of Jacumba. Many people were convinced at the time that it couldn't be done, but John D. Spreckels, the "Sugar King," didn't rest until the "impossible track" was completed in November, 1919, at a cost of US $18 million. After an earthquake collapsed one of the main tunnels a few years later, the large trestle was conceived and was duly built to support the largest of freight trains. The line was closed down sometime in the 1970's but reopened again in the late 1990's for a few years. To the chagrin of those who invested in the line, it unfortunately subsequently closed again in 2004.
Lucky for us, however, we had our trestle, our cameras and our costumes for the shoot and created what will, I'm sure be, a dazzling episode for the eye to behold. I certainly hope it turns out as well as my hdr photo of it did. If you make a venture out to the trestle, be sure to bring PLENTY of water if you hike out in the summertime. By the time we left, the temperature was pegging 115.
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