Border Wall Construction on Tecate Peak Alarms Environmentalists and Tribal Leaders

On a warm summer day, dynamite explosions boomed through the silence on Tecate Peak, which towers over a stretch of high desert east of San Diego. The contrast was sharp. Prior to the blasts, the only sounds along the mountain pass leading to the peak were occasional calls from birds of prey overhead, the rattling of dry brush under a hiker's boots, and a brisk wind sweeping across a dusty ridge trail. Then the bulldozers and dynamite took over, echoing across the mountain as crews blasted away at chaparral and granite that had stood for eons.