The remain­ing walls of the home built in the ear­ly 1930s. Click for attach­ment page; use back but­ton to return.

We were look­ing to take in the hot springs at Agua Caliente one balmy fall evening, when we saw a fel­low named John McDon­ald set­ting up a pro­jec­tor in a lit­tle sand alcove between some of the great boul­ders that flank the coun­ty park.  Sit­ting on scat­tered pic­nic tables and scav­enged lawn chairs, the few of us who gath­ered were treat­ed to the 76-minute pro­duc­er’s cut of the movie Ghost Moun­tain Exper­i­ment which has since made rounds at film fes­ti­vals and pub­lic television.

John Mac­Don­ald’s 2007 doc­u­men­tary of the South Fam­i­ly’s life on Ghost Moun­tain is the next best thing to a time machine, tak­ing one back to the Anza-Bor­rego Desert of the 1930s and 40s.  I have fol­lowed some of his pro­duc­tions since that evening at Agua Caliente Hot Springs and have been con­sis­tent­ly enriched by the cul­tur­al ener­gy of his work.  You can see for your­self at mcdonaldproductions.com.

A few miles up the Coun­ty Road S2, oth­er­wise known as the Great Over­land Stage Route of 1849, and above the floor of Blair Val­ley, is a lit­tle moun­tain sad­dle cradling the ruins of an adobe home built by Mar­shal South to shel­ter his wife, Tanya, and even­tu­al­ly their three chil­dren. The fam­i­ly per­se­vered in the noto­ri­ous bone-chill­ing wind that comes from the north­west and the sear­ing heat of sum­mer of the far west Sono­ran Desert, where tem­per­a­tures often climb over 110 degrees. Blair Val­ley is arguably the cold­est place in San Diego coun­ty, where tem­per­a­tures reg­u­lar­ly fall below 20 degrees in the win­ter and have reached zero.

A rocky trail, for sure. The hik­er is wear­ing a ban­dan­na across her face because of high winds which are com­mon on the mountain.

Vis­i­tors to the aban­doned site began show­ing in reg­u­lar num­bers by the 1980s.  Before then, the South home­site bespoke a rel­a­tive­ly unknown sto­ry. Hik­ers and campers hap­pen­stance to a few signs indi­cat­ing a trail up Ghost moun­tain attract­ed oin­ly a few over the course of a day or even week.  Vis­i­tors are now plen­ti­ful dai­ly and chances are fair on days of good weath­er with gen­tle breeze that vis­i­tors will be around all day.

The trail from the park­ing area at the foot of Ghost Moun­tain is 2/3rd mile long with an ele­va­tion gain of some 440 feet.  Over­all, it is a mod­er­ate hike, but be pre­pared for roly-polies (not the bug types, but small, round­ed rocks and peb­bles) on the par­tial­ly erod­ed trail and, in a few places, scram­bling among small boul­ders.  Hik­ing boots are rec­om­mend­ed, sneak­ers are not, so are poles if you have them.  There is chol­la along the way; bring along some means to pull out the spines ( a small pair of pli­ers works best) should you encounter any on your per­son.  Stair-steps built from the nat­ur­al rock placed by South him­self are uncom­mon but nice when encoun­tered, with most found clos­er to the top.  There are also mul­ti­ple routes to be seen in some places—you would­n’t be the first to lose one trail and oick up another—just be vig­i­lant and gen­er­al­ly keep your eye out for the road bet­ter traveled.

Some of the orig­i­nal home­site con­struc­tions remain intact, such as the use­ful sun­di­al and the cis­tern.  A sun­di­al can tell us many things: the time of noon, the time of day, an inter­val of time, the approx­i­mate date, and in this case even some­thing about Mar­shal South.  All things con­sid­ered as to a sun­di­al, it can be quite an edu­ca­tion­al device.  Mar­shal South would have enjoyed teach­ing any­one the rudi­ments of his sun­di­al, and to that point McDon­ald’s doc­u­men­tary explores the edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties made for the South chil­dren with crit­i­cal inter­views of local Julian res­i­dents who knew the fam­i­ly.  My own con­ver­sa­tion with one of those inter­viewed found the sub­ject of edu­ca­tion the most sen­si­tive ele­ment of the “exper­i­ment” to any­one con­sid­er­ing South’s methods.

Loca­tion map of Yaquitepec.

The sto­ry of the South fam­i­ly is com­pelling because it can strike a per­son­al chord with any­one who has ever dreamed of unshack­ling all that is mod­ern. But McDon­ald’s doc­u­men­tary details the hard­ships that were brought down on the fam­i­ly by Mar­shal South’s per­sis­tence to com­plete his exper­i­ment in the face of grow­ing envi­ron­menal hard­ship and with­er­ing roman­tic appeal. The film is par­tic­u­lar­ly fur­thered by the inci­sive inter­views of those who con­sid­ered his per­son­al motives.  Of course, every­thing is sub­ject to retrospect.

The “Sun­di­al” and ruins with the Lagu­na Moun­tains to the west. Click for attach­ment page; use back but­ton to return.

The film does equal­ly well in set­ting the fla­vor of a time­less land­scape that can be expe­ri­enced even today. The adobe house was well-intact in the ear­ly 1980s when I first vis­it­ed it, its iron bed still inside the struc­ture and roof still keep­ing out some of the rain. The Souths seemed scarce­ly gone, even though they had left all of it behind in the late 1940s. Some of the adobe walls had sur­vived into 2012. They seem to erode to about half their pre­vi­ous extent every twen­ty years or so.  The rock rain basins, the cis­tern and the sun­di­al still per­sist and should for many years to come—like the many great boul­ders around the site. They num­ber in the hun­dreds, if not thou­sands, near­ly unchanged in their domin­ion of the moun­tain for the thou­sands of years native peo­ples have left their pres­ence in the area.

Before McDon­ald’s doc­u­men­tary, there was Diana Lind­say’s cap­ti­vat­ing and high­ly rec­om­mend­ed book, “Mar­shal South and the Ghost Moun­tain Chron­i­cles”. (Click­ing either the typed link or the cov­er image will take you to the book’s page at Amazon.com where some of its con­tents, includ­ing pho­tos of the South fam­i­ly at Yaquite­pec, can be seen).

Ghost Moun­tain Exper­i­ment link will take you to its home page where you can order the fea­ture-length direc­tor’s cut, the trail­er of which may be seen on YouTube below.  And…if you hap­pen to remem­ber the mem­o­rable Huell Hows­er “Cal­i­for­nia Gold” doc­u­men­tary series (KCET), then you might be charmed to know there is an unseen Huell Hows­er episode on the sub­ject of Mar­shal South that can be ordered through the above page.