My first visit was to one of the great Ranchos in San Dionysio canyon. Early 2007. I had gone down to Baja just to look around, gave myself about a week. One day I went up into San Dionysio from Santiogo, and just stumbled upon this beautiful place, hiking around, when I met a gentleman that ended up with the sobriquet of Sr. Pequeño. I asked him if he would take me into the Sierra, and he agreed.

We spent a couple days prepping, and then set out early one morning. As we hiked and hiked, we ended up forming a lovely bond. We really had a great few days together. He kept saying camp was around the next bend, “a little more,” and somehow that ended up with me calling him Sr. Pequeño. We hiked for about 12 hours the first day, got about 1/3 of the way in (but who knows what trail he was taking me on), and ended up joining a team of Mexicans who were doing trail building and eco-restoration. Older local guys. It was magical. They were cooking goat on a spit, making tortillas at camp, it was pretty great. They put us up, and it turned out they were his family and he was taking me there on purpose.