Marshal made his living selling freelance articles to Desert magazine. His short stories chronicled the daily lives of Marshal and Tanya South and their three children, Rider, Rudyard, and Victoria. Tanya's poetry was also bought and published by Desert Magazine. Their self-built cabin was furnished with furniture and decorated with crafts made by Marshal and his gifted hands. Tanya encouraged Marshal to produce his craft work to sell as an additional source of income, but he refused. Once again, Marshal did not value material wealth.
The final curtain fell on The Great Experiment in 1946. Tanya had long been concerned that Rider, Rudyard, and Victoria needed a chance to integrate with society. Marshal ignored her pleas. On an October day while Marshal was away in Julian, Tanya and the children hiked out to highway S-2 and flagged down a passing car. Tanya gave the driver a note asking for help from the Red Cross. Soon after, the Red Cross came out to Ghost Mountain and took Tanya and the children to Oceanside where they began new lives. Tanya filed for divorce.
 The smooth sandy section gives...  The smooth sandy section gives way to a rolling, rocky surface as the route crosses an alluvial fan. Our Sway-A-Way suspension and Mickey Thompson tires allowed us to move along at a good clip, but we were still running street pressure-about 40 psi-in the tires, which transmitted too much vibration into our seats. |  Dropping to 30 psi took the...  Dropping to 30 psi took the edge off of the bumps and returned better traction in the sand and rocks. We didn't have an air source along for the ride, so 30 psi was a good middle ground that worked in the dirt but could still be driven on the highway back to home. |  This is the second spur. The...  This is the second spur. The intersection is well-signed. Follow the Grapevine Trail. |
Life changed for Tanya and the children. They moved to Carlsbad, where Tanya found work cleaning movie theaters. Eventually, she found better pay working in an office. Rider, Rudyard, and Victoria entered school and did in fact become successfully integrated with the rest of the "normal kids." For Marshal, on the other hand, life ended. Marshal's heart was not strong, and the loss of his family broke him physically and emotionally. Marshal died of heart disease in Julian on October 22, 1948. Tanya lived another 50 years, passing away in 1997 just shy of her 100th birthday. Rider, Rudyard, and Victoria are still alive today leading low-profile, private lives.
Inspiration for our trip came largely from author Diana Lindsay's book Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles: An Experiment in Primitive Living. The definitive 321-page volume contains interviews, history, photos, and the writings of both Marshal and Tanya South. Rider South, the eldest of the three children, contributed to Lindsay's book, providing vital information and insight into life on Ghost Mountain. Although his mother Tanya remained bitter about Marshal and The Great Experiment to the very end of her life, Rider's recollections and sentiments carry an entirely different tone. Rider's accounts of Ghost Mountain are devoid of anger or bitterness toward either of his parents.
 Grapevine Canyon road soon...  Grapevine Canyon road soon leaves the open area and becomes a shelf road along an ever-narrowing canyon. With the exception of a couple of rock-strewn stretches, Grapevine Canyon is suitable for near-stock, high-clearance 4x4's. One caveat: trail surfaces change. Don't come back whining to us if you drive Grapevine Canyon in a low-slung stocker with running boards and get high-centered. |  Our 4Runner UNnlimited is...  Our 4Runner UNnlimited is equipped with a built-in GPS navigation system. As delivered, the street navigation data seems boundless, but there's not a whole lot of information built in once the pavement is left behind. That said, we were impressed that the navigation system included unpaved Grapevine Canyon Road in its data banks. |  The first few hundred yards...  The first few hundred yards of Grapevine Canyon Road pass by primitive Yaqui Well campground. These forks join back up in a few hundred feet. |
Our dusty drive and steep hike to the South family home site left us amazed, even though it wasn't our first time there. How could anyone last even a week in such a place? Ghost Mountain is a prime example of stark desert beauty, but it is not hospitable at all. The South's former home lies in ruins, gradually melting back into the desert floor from which it was built.
After leaving the South family home site, we looked for a trail worthy of the 4Runner. Our summertime visit meant that precious few people were out and about on the trails. Desert heat meant that we couldn't risk a breakdown and the resulting hike out for help. We needed a trail that offered scenery, challenge, and easy access to paved, well-traveled roads. These criteria meant that classic Anza-Borrego trails such as Diablo Dropoff would be reserved for another day. Instead, we pointed our grille at Grapevine Canyon Road and the Jasper Trail.
 Leaving the Palomar Observatory,...  Leaving the Palomar Observatory, we plunged through the twists and turns of East Grade Road (S-7) to California 76 (more twists and turns) to California 79 (few straight sections). San Diego County Highway S-2 (gnarled and sinewy) leads to the dirt of Blair Valley Road. Blair Valley Road winds along, and offers travelers side trips to Indian/Native American pictographs and mortreros (meal grinding sites). Bypassing the Pictograph and Mortreros road will lead to the trail head parking area for the Marshal South trail. Carry plenty of water; there's none to be found along the trail. By the same token, the trail is steep and rocky, and the sunlight harsh and unforgiving. Be prepared with sunglasses and sunscreen. Winter temperatures are much more temperate, sometimes dipping below freezing, but the trail still requires preparedness. |  After a mile of scrambling,...  After a mile of scrambling, the ruins of the South's desert home await. Marshal and Tanya named the place 'Yaquitepec' after the Yaqui Indians who lived in the area centuries ago. The cabin had three rooms: a kitchen and bed room, a living room, and a mouse-proof room where food was stored. The total interior dimensions were 15 feet by 40 feet. Marshal and Tanya put a corrugated tin roof atop the adobe walls. The corrugated roof drained into a gutter, which led into a system of water-storage cisterns. |  Though there are rattlesnakes...  Though there are rattlesnakes in the area, the buzzing we heard came from cicadas like this small-but-noisy individual. |