I'm Back...With a Baja Road Report

[Glen]

Hello All... It's been a minute since I've been on the forum (long story).

Anyway, I know this is the time of year that a lot of folks head to Baja & thought I'd give a current road report. At least as far south as San Felipe.

We just got home from that area yesterday and ran into a couple of road issues that may be issues for several weeks or longer:

1) Caltrans appears to be repairing & repaving several sections of the eastbound lanes of Hwy 8 between the towns of El Cajon & Ocotillo (over the pass). As a result, they take it down to 1 lane in those areas and it can get pretty backed up. On a recent Tuesday morning around 7:30am my wife was stuck for over an hour, with 1/2 of that not moving at all. I went thru around 10:30am the following Tuesday and was only delayed about 30 minutes.

Coming home yesterday & going thru that area around 1:30pm, we could see that the traffic was completely stopped & backed up for at least 2 miles or more.

It's hard to tell exactly what they are doing, or how long that project will take, but it didn't look like they were going to be finished anytime soon. I think day of week & time of day will definitely determine how backed up it gets.

As you drop down the canyon into Ocotillo they are repairing some rockslides (probably from all the rain dumped by hurricane Hillary) and putting up some pretty heavy-duty looking barricades. Those areas were also taken down to 1 lane.

2) On Mex Hwy 5, south of Mexicali, at KM167 (south of the military checkpoint) the southbound side of the bridge/overpass was completely taken out by hurricane Hillary. They are diverting traffic to the northbound side to get around it for a short distance. It looked like they were in the process of putting up some better warning signs, but nothing will be lit up at night, so be careful if driving that section of road at night. Also, their road cone pattern was kinda sparce & laid out kinda funky so it wasn't immediately clear what they wanted you to do. This is also a project that could take months to fix.

3) Although they've done a great job of fixing up the roads and filling in potholes around the town of San Felipe over the last couple of years, we did see a couple of bad potholes on the southbound side of the road, just south of the marina. Coming home, we also saw one on the northbound side right at the marina that would definitely do some damage if you didn't see it.

What we've noticed over the years is that they tend to work on an area and then move on, so these potholes may remain for some time. However, the locals will sometimes fill them in with dirt if they get too bad.

4) Although we did not go further south than our place (25 miles south of San Felipe) we did talk to our neighbor who told us that hurricane Hillary really loosened up the already loose rock on the sides of Hwy 5 as you go through the hills around the Puertecitos area. He said it could be completely clear in the morning, and then a rockslide happens and there are rocks/boulders strewn across the road.

This is always kind of an issue in this area, but he said it happens much more frequently now.

My wife will be going back down around the second week of November, so I'll get an update from her and post it here.

[eddyturn]

Thank you, Glen.