El Camino del Diablo

 Highway of the Devil – once a 250-mile link between the northwestern frontier of Mexico and the colonies of California, began at Caborca, in Mexico’s state of Sonora. It extended north northwest across the desert to what is today the United States/Mexican border. It turned west northwest and followed the border through a phantasmagoria landscape of organ pipe cactus, desert flats, drifting sand dunes, ancient lava flows and searing summer heat, passing through the southern edges of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, and the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range. Marked by graves and headstones, it reached a merciful end at Yuma, Arizona.

The landscape has changed little since the coming of the early Spanish explorers, who chronicled their own passage across the region but gave us few insights into the local tribes they encountered—the Sand People or Sand Papagos, Yuhas and others.

El Camino del Diablo entered history when Francisco Vasquez de Coronado arrived in 1540, having led his famed expedition from Mexico City to begin exploring the Southwest in search of the mythical seven cities of Cibola with their streets of gold. At an Indian village near where Caborca now stands, Coronado heard of a juncture of two major rivers some three to four weeks travel to the west. He dispatched one of his captains, Melchoir Diaz, to lead a side expedition to investigate the report.

Diaz assembled his party and supplies and set out across the desert, the first Spanish "entrada," or excursion, into the region. The hardships they encountered prompted them to name the route "El Camino del Diablo." Padre Eusibio Kino, a Jesuit priest, undertook the next major exploration of the area late in the 17th century. He mapped the area and located most of the water stops. Juan Bautista de Anza led 200 colonists from Tubac, Arizona, across part of the trail in 1775 on his way to found the city of San Francisco.

If I was going to hunt this trail I would research Padre Eusibio Kino and try to find a copy of the map he made of the trail. The water hole even if dry now would be your best starting point.

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You can drive thru it is easy drive considering your have a 4WD and another 4WD with crew for backup, You need to go MCAS (Marine corp air station) in Yuma and ask for a days permit, as some time the area is hot meaning low level flights and shooting, From Interstate 8 Follow the Camino de diablo all the way to tinijas altas and be observant for land marks anything of interest stop and check the area with your detector, finds are well worth but don't expect big caches,  you may find whatever is left hidden mostly from Banditos that never made it back, I always came back with a little something always, protect your feet all the way to your knees, you may hear the rattlers but sidewinders are silent and sneaky, if you need to rest rest in your car , scorpions love company and when you see 1 there are another 20 that you don't see, and if you don't see that 1 you may feel him crawling under your pants or shirt sleeves, If you make it to Tinijas Altas don't try to be brave and enter any openings or holes that you will see on the sides of the hills you may end up to be the lunch of coyotes or mountain lions, if your detector start screaming slow down and don't dig spoke the sand gently with a long knife to verify that is not an unexploded ordinance, I have encounter 11 of them, what you find take it but re-hide it few miles before you exit the area and re-entering hwy 8, you may be stopped and searched by authorities it is a hot area , even on your second trip for retrieval don't take the stuff with you re-hide them just a little closer to the  final exit, it will take you 3-4 trips to get the stuff out.
Please take my word for it, I am a professional and Live in Yuma for 45 years.
Good luck
Yanis 

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