Weekend Escape: Mexico : Dog Days at Camp Baja : Canine capers at a lake out of time and place in the peninsula’s arid, high-desert mountains

A lake is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Baja California. If you think of water at all, the odds are it’s the sea or a long cool drink down by the pool. Or maybe dying out in the desert due to a lack of it.

Yet only 40 miles south of the border, tucked away high up in the Sierra de Juarez Mountains, lies Laguna Hanson--Baja California’s only substantial freshwater lake.

I’d heard about it, but I must admit I had my doubts. Baja California is desert country after all, and desert lakes have a nasty habit of only being there after a rain. This one was hardly ever mentioned in guidebooks; it was even left off some maps. If the cartographers couldn’t even agree enough to give it a dotted outline, would it actually be there if I drove all the way down?

In the mood for a quiet weekend in the country, I decided to find out. I piled the dog, Cleveland, into the car, along with her necessary papers--an International Certificate of Health from the veterinarian and a rabies certification--and headed south down Interstate 5. I love driving to the Baja. It’s so, well, easy. No immigration, no customs--at least heading south. And the coast road--a panorama of spectacular ocean views all the way down to Ensenada.

We got tangled in the traffic in Ensenada, though because it was late in the afternoon, the air wasn’t at its lung-wrenching worst. Cleveland had already cast me a final how-could-you-make-me-suffer-so look and collapsed in a heavy heap on the back seat. And once we’d climbed through the city’s shantytown of corrugated shacks, the scenery changed dramatically. It felt like Colorado. With an orange sunset exploding in my rearview mirror, I traveled across open plains of wheat stubble and grazing cows beneath a huge sky. Then, just after the kilometer 54 marker, a hand-painted sign pointed up a sandy track: Laguna Hanson, it read.

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This, I have to say, didn’t exactly fill me with confidence. It looked as if someone had stuck it there as an afterthought. The road wasn’t that hot either--22 miles of shuddering washboard surface, forded here and there by streams leaking down from the mountains. My Accord groaned up out of these steep creek beds and more than once I had to get out and test a deep-looking puddle; any conveyance over the road should have high clearance, and it’s not a route I’d recommend for RVs.

My dog was finally enjoying herself--barking from the front seat at tiny owls fluttering in and out of the car headlights and at the odd frog slopping across the road; yet as we crested at 5,000 feet in a forest thick with the smell of ponderosa pines, I began to feel lost. We passed a ragged settlement of mountain shacks, but this only added to my disorientation, so once out of earshot of town I pulled off the road and camped for the night.

The surprise came early the next morning: We were only about 200 yards from the entrance to Parque Nacional Constitucion de 1857. Five minutes later--it would have been sooner but for a standoff with a cow in the road--I caught a glint of light through the trees: Laguna Hanson.

Nestling in a hollow, it spread in front of me over about three-fourths of a mile, its shoreline punctuated here and there by clusters of granite boulders and patches of reed. There were cows wandering everywhere, down through the thinning pines from the surrounding forest to graze, standing ankle-deep in the lake, taking in long cool drinks of water so clear it was like looking into a mirror.

It’s a shallow lake, boasting only an average maximum depth of 15 feet. As I pulled up the car though, I was overwhelmed by another feeling: This lake shouldn’t be here. It seemed unreal, out of place. And the name--Hanson--didn’t help either. It was too American sounding. But I’d read the tale of its naming in several guidebooks, and a curious one it was.

Back in the 1870s, the story goes, a 22-year-old American named Hanson was attracted to the area by the promise of gold. Falling in love with the lake, he forsook gold mining and got himself a job as manager of a local ranch. Then, one morning, he disappeared. His home showed no signs of a hurried exit--indeed there was a large caldron bubbling away on the hearth. The suspicious disappearance seemed destined to go unsolved. But a few weeks later, the police came back and slapped a friend of his, a prospector named Harvey, in the cooler. They retrieved the contents of the caldron and discovered bones. Human bones. Hanson a la carte. Harvey bribed his way to freedom. The locals, who’d always liked Hanson, gave his name to the lake.

Admittedly this wasn’t the best of stories to ponder early Saturday morning while having breakfast and gazing over the lake. Still, I did my best to a bowl of muesli while my dog looked on. A few minutes later a pickup truck pulled up and its driver, who wasn’t in uniform, asked for the $4 camping fee--apparently a one-time charge covering any length of stay. I was suspicious at first, but he gave me an official-looking receipt before he drove away.

The lake itself, depending on the season, is anywhere from three to six miles around. I had the whole day in front of me, so I set off, determined to walk around it.

As parks go, Laguna Hanson is very definitely in the category of undeveloped: A few rudimentary outhouses are dotted around the lake, but that’s about it. Rules are few too. You can camp where you want and pretty much do what you want.

It was pleasant to amble along in the sun, watching the ducks gliding out onto the water. There were enticing paths leading off into the forest, but I stuck to the lake shore, throwing sticks into the water for Cleveland. And back she’d come, stick in mouth, crashing through the reeds up to her knees in mud. After an hour of this, I sprawled out on a rock--those by the water are marked by rings that show the levels to which the lake has risen in the past--and decided that a weekend away sometimes is not so much a question of what you do, but what you don’t do. It’s a chance to sit listening to the wind soughing through the trees, to dip your hand into water and touch the reflected clouds, to relax into nature’s quieter rhythms, where dreams still exist in the gaps normally filled by the white noise of the city.

But chocolate Labs don’t sit still for long. So after being nudged, I got up and made my way slowly to the other side of the lake, where an extended Mexican family, sitting around a barbecue, waved me over. They were there for a few days, they told me. I’d come at a good time, they said, off-season and not at Easter. They were right: They were the only other people I’d seen all day.

It was a warm night, with only la musica from my neighbors slinking across the lake surface to disturb the night air. As I turned in, almost on cue, coyotes began their nighttime aria. My dog growled drowsily from her sleep, then started twitching and doing little coughing barks as she resumed her pursuit of dream-time rabbits. I lay awake for more than an hour intently watching for shadows on the tent, wondering if I’d get a visit from the lake’s patron spirit. But he never showed. One last walk after breakfast showed me that my Mexican friends had already left, and for three hours Laguna Hanson was perfect: just me, the dog and the clouds floating in the lake’s crystal waters.

After lunch, with thunderheads billowing overhead, I reluctantly drove back through the trees. Not more than a mile from the park entrance, we approached a huge stick lying in the road. Someone in the car wanted me to get out and throw it for her. But then it moved, slithered to the side of the road, coiled up and rattled. Up at Laguna Hanson, things could be like that, I decided: not quite what they seemed.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Budget for One

Car insurance (3 days): $30.00

Road tolls: $14.00

Park camping fee: $4.00

Gas: $30.00

Food: $30.00

Road map (from AAA): $4.00

FINAL TAB: $112.00