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Mexico's Copper Canyons Scenes from the FrontierRichard Arghiris visits canyon country in Mexico  The mountains are stacked on tiers like the towers of an ancient city. Each turn opens a new canyon. Each is as expansive and consuming as the last. Each is chiselled impossibly from the earth. Pine forests saturate the slopes, while vultures cruise elegantly over the gorges. I pause and inhale the space, the sky, the immense and expansive vista. The land is as wild as it is alive.The Copper Canyons in northern Mexico occupy 40,000 square kilometres and a depth four times greater than the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Carved out of the Sierra Madre by six rivers, over 20 canyons form this immense natural wonder. Where cool evergreen forests pervade its heights, a searing subtropical climate scorches the Canyons’ floor. The interior of this national park is pristine. Unspoilt lakes, rivers, springs, waterfalls and gorges await exploration. Meanwhile, the 655km long Chihuahua-Pacific railway line traverses the canyons on an east-west axis. This outstanding train ride provides unparalleled and dramatic views of the landscape.  Equipped with a sturdy pair of boots and my favourite silver hip-flask, I set out to experience the great solitude and spirit of copper canyon country. Creel, a town located at an altitude of 2810m, was my chosen jumping off point. It was a rugged sort of place that conjured distinct frontier sentiments. Pine forest, log cabins and lumber mills formed the backdrop. The locals, clad in cowboys hats, watched quietly from doorways. Meanwhile, scavenging dogs loitered hungrily upon the damp streets. My first explorations took me into the Complejo Ecoturistico Arareko - an indigenous Tarahumara ‘eidejo’, or land-owning co-operative just beyond town. The Tarahumara, who number 50,000, are the spiritual and legal custodians of copper canyon territory. Subsisting on very basic means, they sparsely populate the region with farms and cabins. Many Tarahumara dwell in traditional cave abodes. Their name in their own language is Raramuri, which means ‘those who run fast’. As accomplished long-distance runners, they can cover wild stretches of a hundred miles or more without a break. This is often done barefoot or in sandals, kicking a small ball in front of them in the case of organised races. Throughout the eidejo and Creel itself, the Tarahumara can be spotted in their traditional clothing. Men wear loin-cloths and puffy-sleeved shirts. The women don bright skirts with matching headscarves. My first hikes in the eidejo led me to strange rock formations. A few kilometres from the entrance lay the valley of the mushrooms. This bizarre and naturally formed locale contained several standing stone structures that resembled 15 foot toadstools. Beyond there lay the valley of the frogs, where enormous amphibian-like boulders overlooked the landscape surreally. The valley of the gods, 9 km away, accommodated rocks that resembled giant erect penises - symbols of life-force and fertility in Tarahumaran culture. As my hikes grew more extended, they were conducted with the eager aid of local children. The price of their service was meagre, and as an inexperienced hiker it was crucial. The tykes were invaluable in shooing away cattle, locating lizards in the grass and practising my dire Spanish on. Moreover, they had a deep familiarity with the territory. With a tireless pace they led me along unmarked trails. Incomparable vistas unfolded as we skirted enormous chasms and cascading rivers. The terrain grew increasingly untamed, rising and falling through dense forest. The freedom and purity of the place became more and more apparent the further I strayed. After some days of exploring the eidejo, I sat in a bar in Creel, discussing my adventures with Augustus, a local storekeeper. 'If you really want to experience the canyons,' he told me. 'Then you must go to Batopilas at the bottom. That is, if you can stomach the ride.'  The sweltering town of Batopilas, 140km away, requires a six hour descent by bus to reach it. This spectacular ride, a ride to end all precarious chicken bus rides, rises and falls through several enormous canyons. There is a drop of 1800m to the side, and in one particular 16km stretch, the road makes over 200 turns and 20 hair-pin switchbacks. As we made this truly monumental descent, an elderly native of Batopilas continually insisted that I lean out of the windows to take more pictures... 'Take more,' he grinned. 'More, more. This is the best part now...'Batopilas had an entirely different flavour. It was a rough-looking, brutally arid town. It flanked a wide river where women washed their laundry on rocks. Evidence of the silver-mining that built the place abounded in the form of ruined facilities and abandoned mines. The former company headquarters were contained on the opposite river bank. Fig roots strangled this dilapidated and overgrown orange hacienda. Cows grazed in crumbling courtyards, amid piles of rubble, giant rusted cogs and springs.  Early the next morning, when the town had cooled to tolerable levels, I hiked to the Satevo Mission, that is the Catedral Perdido - the Lost Cathedral. This enigmatic church stands in a dusty nowhere patch at the end of a burning, harsh and cacti-flanked track. At a distance of 8km from Batopilas, what remains mysterious about its presence is that there’s never been a population large enough to merit its existence. In fact, until recently, there has not been a nearby population at all. A grim local rumour suggests the it was built as a tomb for the corpses of a certain Padre’s impregnated girlfriends....Some days later, I exited the Copper Canyons in style, as a first-class passenger on the Chihuahua-Pacific railway from Creel. The westward journey, as far as Los Mochis on the Pacific coast, took eight hours to complete. The pace was steady and continuous, rolling on one monumental edifice after the next. We’d enter a tunnel and exit. We’d curve one way and then another. The mountains would creep by at their pace. Engulfing stone corridors. Towering green and orange pillars. Finally, by dusk, the landscape flattened into desolate, cacti spotted desert. As I emerged into Los Mochis, the smell of salt and heat and humanity filled me. Mosquitoes swarmed beneath street lights while taxi drivers hustled frantically. ‘Civilisation’ again. 
Click here >> for general Mexico information Click here >> for the main Copper Canyons website |
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