Marshall South – Anza Borrego State Park, California

Marshall South, a blogger before his time! Marshall and his family lived on Ghost Mountain, in the remote wilderness of the Southern California desert in an area that is now Anza Borrego State Park. His wife and three children lived a primitive lifestyle for 17 years up on that mountain and Marshall blogged, OK he wrote articles, about their day to day lives for a magazine called “Desert Magazine”.

We had seen the short documentary at the Anza Borrego State Park Visitor’s Center about Ghost Mountain and the Marshall South family. We had also purchased and read the book called “Marshall South and The Ghost Mountain Chronicles”. We would read a few of the articles every day. We even visited his grave in Julian. Now it was time for us to go hike up Ghost Mountain and see the ruins of the family house and get a first hand look at their views! So off we went.

Now, this is where it gets a bit hairy because first we had to get there. Our mode of transport is a motorcycle which is usually fine under normal conditions but when you have to ride on soft sand or gravel it can be a bit touch and go.  To get to the Marshall South trail head you have to turn off the main paved road in Blair Valley and drive about 2-3 miles on soft sand with some wash boarding, some ruts, some big holes, etc.

We crept along going slow and slipping and sliding along the way. At least if we tipped it would be on soft sand and no traffic! Only 1 mile to go!

And ….. we finally made it!

We parked and removed our motorcycle gear and headed up the mountain. What a beautiful day, a great hike, and fantastic views when you arrived at the top. AND the best part was finally seeing in real life what we had been reading about for a few weeks. A great day!

Up the mountain we hike

Fantastic views from atop Ghost Mountain

Checking out the house runins

Admiring more of the views atop Ghost Mountain

Time to head back down the mountain and drive back on the soft sand

Down we go

We took it nice and easy on our way back but the sand was deep in places and a few cars were coming from the other direction which meant we had to stay on our side of the sand. Oops, down we went. It was slow and gentle so no problem BUT picking the bike (750lbs) up again, well, that put a strain in my back! Oh well. Still a great day!