Following el Camino del Diablo, The Devil’s Highway: The Land Speaks, PinDrop® Answers
- Ruth Ellen Elinski
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
There are roads you travel for pleasure, and roads you travel for understanding.
El Camino del Diablo —The Devil’s Highway — is the latter. A scorched corridor of desert stretching across the Arizona–Sonora border, it has tested explorers, migrants, soldiers, and surveyors for centuries. It is a place where water determines survival, silence carries weight, and preparation is not optional.
In the coming days, PinDrop® Founder Tim Elinski travels this historic route alongside media and collaborators. The journey will document how PinDrop® Travel Trailers are designed for places exactly like this: remote, unforgiving, and deeply beautiful.
Throughout the trip, the team will reflect on voices from history, including accounts collected in Last Water on the Devil’s Highway, A Cultural and Natural History of the Tinajas Altas, stories that remind us why the desert demands respect.
“This is a country where a mistake can cost you your life.”
Thoughtful, Self-Contained Systems
On el Camino del Diablo, small errors can compound quickly. Water miscalculated. Shelter misplaced. Gear that fails. There are true stories that document these ends.
PinDrop® trailers are built around self-sufficiency. We are excited to test the limits of our intentional design and thoughtful build. Integrated water storage, reliable solar-powered electrical systems, and efficient layouts allow travelers to move deliberately and confidently without unnecessary complexity. In a place where margins are thin, PinDrop will prevail as a resource and reliable tool for those who embrace challenges and remote experiences.
“The desert does not forgive carelessness.”
Durable Construction & Off-Road Readiness
This trail has humbled wagons, horses, and early automobiles alike. Soft sand, volcanic rock, and relentless heat have challenged those that attemp to cross this trail in the Sonoran Desert.
PinDrop’s lightweight yet rugged construction, balanced suspension, and off-road geometry are designed to move with the terrain, not against it.
“Water was everything. Without it, nothing else mattered.”
Efficient Galley & Resource Awareness
On the Devil’s Highway, water stops were sacred. Tinajas, natural rock basins, meant survival or death. This trip will explore these basins and the stories and people whose lives depended on them.
PinDrop’s galley is designed with respect for resources. Compact, intentional, and highly functional, the galley kitchen allows travelers to prepare real meals and nourish their adventures. No wasted movement. No wasted effort. Just what you need, when you need it.
“People disappeared here. Sometimes without a trace.”
Shelter That Creates Calm
When the sun drops and the desert cools, isolation becomes palpable. The darkness is complete. The silence is total.
Inside a PinDrop®, isolation turns into refuge. Thoughtful insulation, a comfortable sleeping cabin, and a sense of enclosure and safety create a place to rest deeply, both physically and mentally. It’s not luxury for show; it’s comfort with purpose.
“Those who crossed successfully were prepared—and respectful.”
PinDrop® Philosophy: Designed for Respectful Exploration
This media trip isn’t about spectacle. It’s about honoring a landscape that has shaped history and learning more about those that have travelled across this historic trail for hundreds of years.
PinDrop® Travel Trailers are designed for travelers who move deliberately, who research before they roll out, and who understand that the wild is not a backdrop it is a destination of choice. That's the point. El Camino del Diablo doesn’t reward speed or ego. Neither does PinDrop®.
A Journey Worth Documenting - el Camino del Diablo
As Founder Tim and the PinDrop® team depart, the exact route will remain intentionally undisclosed and the team intends to strictly adhere to the Leave No Trace ethics.
What will be shared is the story of:
an historic trail.
a modern trailer built for this purpose.
what it means to travel well when the land sets the terms.
Follow along as PinDrop® heads into one of the most storied and demanding routes in the American Southwest and where every mile reminds us why good design, like good judgment, matters.
Referenced Literature:
Last Water on the Devil's Highway, A Cultural and Natural History
of Tinajas Altas
A Book By:
Bill Broyles
Gayle Harrison Hartmann
Thomas E. Sheridan
Gary Paul Nabhan
Mary Charlotte Thurtle
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