52 Hike Challenge 2016 Adventure Series
6.75 miles | +1300'
Blue Angels Peak is the highest point in Imperial County.
It's located in the very southwest corner of the county, less than 300 yards
north of the United States-Mexico border. The peak also lies just west and
adjacent to the Jacumba Wilderness Area, so designated as part of the
California Desert Protection Act of 1994. A broad range, the Jacumbas are
really a series of almost parallel ridges separating valleys, with each ridge
successively lower than the next, forming a great staircase descending eastward
into the Colorado Desert. South of the border these same mountains stretch
about 100 miles into Mexico, where they are known as the Sierra Juarez.
The terrain is rocky, dry, and desolate, a classic southern
California desert landscape, with outstanding views in all directions.
Blue Angels Peak might be climbed more often by illegal
immigrants using it as a lookout point to avoid the US Border Patrol, than by
citizens of the United States. It's original name was Smuggler's Peak (which is
inscribed on one of the three USG markers found near the summit), testifying to
this.
International Boundary Marker 231, a ten-foot steel obelisk,
is located just south and a little west of the peak. These markers are numbered
consecutively along the border from #1 at the Gulf of Mexico shoreline east of
Brownsville-Matamoros to #258 at the Pacific Ocean.
The peak was named in honor of the Navy Flight Demonstration
Squadron, the Blue Angels, which is based at a nearby naval air facility in El
Centro.
No comments:
Post a Comment