San Matias Pass, or Paseo San Matias, is a

pass Pass, PASS, The Pass or Passed may refer to: Places *Pass, County Meath, a townland in Ireland *Pass, Poland, a village in Poland *El Paso, Texas, a city which translates to "The Pass" * Pass, an alternate term for a number of straits: see Li ...

at the crest of the east west divide between the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

and

Gulf of California The Gulf of California (), also known as the Sea of Cortés (''Mar de Cortés'') or Sea of Cortez, or less commonly as the Vermilion Sea (''Mar Vermejo''), is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean that separates the Baja California peninsula from ...

watersheds of the Baja California Peninsula located in

Baja California Baja California, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, is a state in Mexico. It is the northwesternmost of the 32 federal entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1952, the area was known as the North Territory of B ...

. The pass lies between the

Peninsular Ranges The Peninsular Ranges (also called the Lower California province) are a group of mountain ranges that stretch from Southern California to the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula; they are part of the North American Pacific Coast Range ...

of Sierra de Juarez to the north and the

Sierra San Pedro Martir Sierra (Spanish for "mountain range" or "mountain chain" and "saw", from Latin '' serra'') may refer to the following: Places Mountains and mountain ranges * Sierra de Juárez, a mountain range in Baja California, Mexico * Sierra de las Nieves ...

to the south. The eastern end of the long oval basin, called the Valle la Trinidad, forms the upper part of the San Matias Pass, at about 3200 feet. It descends eastward down Cañon San Matias to 2160 feet where it empties out into the Valle Santa Clara to the east. The pass and canyon separates the south end of the Sierra Juarez from the north end of the San Pedro Martir Mountains. The pass is a gap about a quarter of a mile wide with a nearly flat bottom and a gradual descent.Nelson, Lower California and Its Natural Resources, p.17 The modern

Mexican Federal Highway 3 Federal Highway 3 (, Fed. 3 ) is a tollfree part of the federal highway corridors (). One segment connects Tecate (and California State Route 188 on the US-Mexico border) to Ensenada in Baja California Baja California, officially t ...

, between

Ensenada Ensenada ("inlet") is a city in Ensenada Municipality, Baja California, situated on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. Located on Bahía de Todos Santos, the city had a population of 279,765 in 2018, making it the third-largest city in Baja Californ ...

and its junction on

Mexican Federal Highway 5 Federal Highway 5 (, Fed. 5) is a toll-free part of the federal highways corridors (), and follows the northeast length of the state of Baja California from the US-Mexico border in Mexicali to the junction with Fed. 1. The highway is insid ...

on the east coast plain of the peninsula, passes through this pass.

References

Landforms of Baja California {{BajaCalifornia-geo-stub