A historic route used by Indians, Spaniards, and the Jackass Mail

An oriflamme or “golden flame” appeared on the red battle standard of the King of France during the Middle Ages. It is unlikely that Oriflamme Canyon was named for this, although a red banner could have marked a mining claim in the canyon. More likely, the canyon was named for the side-wheel steamship named Oriflamme that brought the first miners to the area in 1870 during the Julian gold rush. The steamship regularly stopped at San Diego Harbor as part of its route between San Francisco and the Atlantic Ocean. Oriflamme was the name first given to a mine worked in the area, and the canyon and mountain soon followed. The name, however, has little to do with the historic and scenic attributes of the canyon, which are considerable. It was the main route between Kumeyaay villages in the desert and summer encampments in the Laguna Mountains. It was the route Col. Pedro Fages took in 1772 while searching for army deserters, making him the first European to set foot in the Anza-Borrego desert that lived to write about it. In the 19th Century, cattle ranchers who had settled near Vallecito built a rough road through Oriflamme Canyon to move their cattle to summer pasture in the Laguna Mountains. Much of that road still exists as the Mason Valley Truck Trail and is part of the route of this hike. In the 1850s, Oriflamme Canyon was a leg on a transcontinental mail route called “The San Antonio and San Diego Mail Line.” It came to be known as the “Jackass Mail” because it used mules to pull wagons up the steep road through the canyon...more