About 4.4 miles. The first side trip that we come to is PINYON MOUNTAIN. This is a very interesting area of the park.
Return to Highway S-2 and continue on South over Little Pass and on the right side of the road (abt. 6.0 miles) is the entrance to BLAIR VALLEY.
Return to Highway S-2 and continue South. About 8.7 miles.Is the BOX CANYON MONUMENT. It was here that Lt. Col. Phillip St. George Cooke and his MORMAN BATTALION widened the narrow chasm with hand tools in 1847, during the Mexican War, to allow wagons to pass freely, thus creating the first wagon road on the southern route to California. Even after the trail through the canyon was widened for the coaches of the Butterfield Stage Line in 1858, the hubs of the wheels would often scrape the solid rock walls.
After you exit BOX CANYON. The dirt road on the right(signed)(about 10 miles) is the entrance to ORIFLAMME CANYON
S-2 now proceeds through Mason Valley, named for James E. Mason, who was the first patentee of the old Vallecito station in 1878 or 1879 after its abandonment in 1877. Mason was also the stagecoach driver who took the first westbound overland mails on the initial run of Birch's Jackass Mail. Mason later aquired patent, in 1891, to 160 acres in the valley that now bears his name. Note the white dumps of an old tourmaline mine across Mason Valley on the slope near the base of the Laguna Mountains. The mine has not been worked since 1914.
A rugged old wagon road from Mason Valley up Salt Creek into the Laguna Mountains brought hay and wild oats for animals and wood for cooking and heat to the Vallecito, Palm Spring and carrizo stage stations.
