Welcome to the off-road encyclopedia. You can contribute to this site by clicking "edit this page" above. You should also register for our monthly newsletter.

Truckhaven Hills

From Dirtopia, The Off-Road Encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

**Truckhaven Hills**
Photo: Jeeps in a Truckhaven canyon
Off-Road Information
Other Names:	Truckhaven, Tierra Del Sol
Terrain:	Dirt hills
Off-Road Use:
Difficulty:	All
Camping:
Geography
County:	Imperial County, CA
Nearest Cities:	Salton City, CA
Map Links:	Google Map Yahoo Map
Satellite Map:	Google Satellite
Special Map:
GPS Coords:	N33 16.792 W116 03.725
Google Earth:	Truckhaven_Hills.kmz
Climate:
Area Size:
Elevation:
Last Visited:	{{{lastvisited}}}
Open/Closed/Date:	{{{openclose}}}
Season(s):	{{{seasons}}}

Truckhaven Hills is located near the Salton Sea in California and is the venue for the popular annual Tierra Del Sol Desert Safari.

The landscape lends itself to this event easily as the topography consists of sandy washes, rocky canyons, deep gorges with almost perpendicular walls and great hill climbs. As the soil is quite loose the rains cause the silt to be washed out like powdered sugar.

This changing topography provides an excellent challenge for a great 4x4 run and is a good test for all the OHVs worth their name.

Tierra del Sol Desert Safari

An excellent opportunity to enjoy one of the best trails Southern California has to offer is the Tierra Del Sol Desert Safari. Started as far back as the 1950’s by a small group from the El Cajon Search Rescue (SAR) team of four wheeling enthusiasts, this has gone on to become the Tierra Del Sol Four Wheel Drive Club. Original members include Joe Branch, Bob Londo, Bill and Doris Wynn. Bill is longer with us, but Joe and Bob still keep up the tradition.

Every year 4x4 enthusiasts gather for the annual weekend event at the Truckhaven hills. The Tierra Del Sol 4x4 Club of San Diego members layout and mark the trails for the organized trail run. Entrants and onlookers gather from the night before to get a head start at the event. The year 2006 marked about 1500 entrants, mostly Jeeps for this event. That is how popular it has become.

The finishing time for this event is approximately four hours. The trail graduates from sand washes, rocky canyons to steep hill climbs and is clearly marked with colored arrows giving to indicate which of them is easy, challenging and extreme.