Copper Canyon Christmas

Published in the April 1995 BMW Norcal Club newsletter.

While most of you were buying Halloween candy, I was Christmas shopping. While most of you were enjoying the autumn weather, I was servicing my bike. And while most of you were doing your hectic last-minute holiday shopping, my Significant-and-Otherwise Doug and I were riding our R80 G/Ss in Mexico.

We'd planned for months to take a 3-week trip over Christmas to explore the famous Copper Canyon area of Central Mexico. It's a series of 7 canyons, among the deepest in North America. The Copper Canyon is most frequently associated with the famous Chihuahua-Pacific railroad that crosses it, an amazing engineering feat that took over 90 years to build. The canyons are populated by the indigenous Tarahumara Indians, who have largely preserved their culture and reclusive way of life.

Our plan was to visit the spectacular Basaseachi waterfalls, then go to Creel, a relatively major town along the railroad and a popular place for tourists to stage Copper Canyon hikes and tours. From Creel, we would visit Batopilas, a old silver-mining town deep in the canyon, then go back to Creel and find our way west to the coast. From there we'd take a ferry to Baja, and then ride northward home.

It didn't exactly happen that way.

Getting there was the usual crank-it tire-squaring proposition, so by the time we got south of the border, we wanted off the slab, pronto. But as much as we enjoyed the backroads, which almost all roads are in Mexico, "Mexico miles" take a lot longer than you expect, so we took a paved longcut.

Our third day was spent riding in drenching rain, from Montecito to Hermosillo and on Mex Hwy 16 east, the absolute longest twistiest road I have ever been on in my life. After over 100 miles of constant curves in relentless rain and fog, we stopped in Yecora, soaked and exhausted. Almost every piece of raingear had failed in one way or another.

We got to Basaseachi national park the next day, and had lunch in the parking lot surrounded by stray dogs -- an all too common sight in Mexico. The hike to the falls culminated in one of the most fantastic views I've ever seen. I felt sad for people who had scornfully reacted, upon hearing about our impending trip, "Mexico? Why would you ever want to go to Mexico?!" Our 30 peso room ($8.50 before the peso devaluation) in town not only had a fireplace, but the kind proprietors carried in wood and started a fire! We dried our clothes by the fire, starting what would become a regular melting sacrifice of some or other synthetic article of clothing.

In beautiful gleaming weather, we took an easy dirt road punctuated with frequent mud spots from Basaseachi to San Juanito and then to Creel, the heart of the Copper Canyon area. There we found the famous Casa Margarita, a gringo-oriented hotel with cheap dormitories, some private rooms, and with dinner & breakfast included. Meals were a gobbling Oliver Twist-like affair -- you finish whatever they give you and get out so another hungry hiker else can sit and snarf before they stop serving.

We spent our first day in the Copper Canyon visiting Tarahumara Indian town of Cusarare, where we saw many colorfully dressed, shy Tarahumaras. We peeked inside the mission and caught glimpses of some sort of native dance performed with long paper headdresses. It was Christmas day. Afterward, we hiked to the beautiful Cusarare waterfalls.

We'd planned to ride the 5 hour, 90-mile dirt road for Batopilas the next day, but in the morning, rain turned to snow and stranded us in Creel. We rode a bit that day anyway, to see how far we'd get exploring a dirt road that a hiker had shown us would lead to the Recohuata hot springs. It didn't take us long to find out how hard it is to keep a faceshield clean in driving snow and to conclude that riding in snow was nuts.

By late morning the next day, the snow-turned-ice melted enough to try again, but it was cold enough that our front wheels were frozen and we had to pour hot water on them to release them! Though the dirt road had a layer of snow on it, we were able to pick our way around the many water puddles and mud patches, and one big boggy field. It started to snow as we parked & covered our bikes to hike further in. It snowed harder and harder, and after about two hours, we headed back to the bikes. We found them under 4" of snow, and the road we'd so carefully picked our way around was gone. Yikes!

I can now say I've created my own tracks in 6" deep snow. It took many hours and many drops to get out, riding carefully in first gear, too slowly to bump over the now-hidden obstacles, resulting in frequent slide-outs. Puddles we'd previously avoided were now known quantities, so despite their length and depth, we'd plow through them instead of risking running into hidden mud by going around them. In the deepest puddles, steam would rise from water hitting the pipes, making it hard to see! But the water was easier than the snow. Though it was tough, especially for Doug who had to come back and rescue my downed bike countless times, we made it out smiling and very pleased with our adventure.

The next day was sunny and warm -- finally, we could leave Creel! But 13 miles later, Doug's bike stopped transmitting power from the engine to the transmission. After a dangerous and failed bike-to-bike towing attempt, we found someone with a van to take the bike back to Creel. The van driver, Sergio, owned a motel in Creel, cheaper than Margarita's, and with a secure area where we could work on Doug's bike.

We got right to work. We pulled the transmission and were very relieved to find a broken clutch plate instead of stripped splines, as we'd feared. We had Marty at Iron Horse BMW Fed-Ex a clutch plate to El Paso, and then took off two-up on my bike for El Paso. Our overnight stay in Chihuahua City was in a motel with a private GARAGE (!) and 24-hr porn channel -- with Spanish subtitles! ("Vamos! Vamos!")

90 miles south of El Paso, my bike kicked up a horrible screeching noise. I was furious. We had to get to El Paso, so we rode anyway and and picked up our parts, then lubed my bike's throwout bearing and added transmission fluid. The noise never returned, so it's still something of a mystery. It took another day to crank back to Creel, and the next day (New Year's Day) installing the new clutch and putting the bike back together.

We'd lost 2 days to snow and 4 days to the broken clutch, so Baja was clearly out. Fortunately, we were rewarded with perfect weather for the rest of the trip.

Onward to Batopilas! Finally! Tourists had warned us about the road to Batopilas, telling tales of giant motorcycle-swallowing vados and deep crevasses. I'm glad we didn't do it in rain, as it was very challenging in spots, but motorcycles can go around the big rock-filled ruts that take up half the road. It descended quickly, was narrow and very twisty, and often rough -- perfect G/S territory. Riding into the canyon was absolutely fantastic.

Batopilas was worth it, with a tropical climate, 80-degree weather and historic old wild-west buildings. Nearby is Satevo, a tiny town with a beautiful huge mission whose history has been lost: no one can explain the relative grandeur of the mission in an area where there has never been enough population to support it. The 7-km road to Satevo was even narrower, craggier and bumpier than the road to Batopilas, finishing with a steep, rocky slope with a river crossing at the bottom. In and out of towns always seemed the most difficult parts of the roads.

But now we had to ride back to Batopilas, and then to Creel, today. The road back to Creel was tougher for me since it was uphill (I'm weird), and I dropped twice and crashed once, and was very frustrated that I couldn't pick up my bike. Doug, of course, was the usual bastion of patience and support. Still, without knowing it, I was slowly learning to handle a fully loaded bike, from which I can't touch the ground with both feet, on rough surfaces. Once we were out of the canyon, the road was easier and we arrived in Creel at dusk.

We stayed at Sergio's place again, greeting our friend with smiles and handshakes. In the morning we headed west, starting out on a flat hard-packed dirt road to El Divisadero. This is the most famous rail stop in the Chihuahua-Pacific railroad, offering postcard enormous views of the deep canyons.

From El Divisadero, we wanted to head west toward the main highway, but we weren't sure if there was a road. Two large-scale and inaccurate maps indicated there was a dirt route across the mountains to Alamos, but the maps didn't agree on the towns along the way. We knew by now how much stock to put in maps -- you just never know if the road is really there, or if it ends in the town the map says. The AAA map was particularly bad! Our topo map indicated parts of a route existed at one time or another, but the placement of towns was different from the other maps. Close enough.

We figured we'd get to Bahuichivo by lunch, then decide if we'd try a northern ("old") or southern ("new") route to get to Mex Hwy 15. Instead, it took all afternoon to get to Bahuichivo. The road was very rough, and wound back and forth across a river, resulting in numerous major water crossings. These were long, deep, curved, always with lots of apple-sized rocks that really slow you down, especially underwater. I lost speed or got bumped and dropped in 3 of these, and had Doug take over twice. We also encountered one deep muddy water puddle, one clay hill, and some very rocky spots. Each obstacle meant getting off the bikes, scouting and psyching ourselves up, and made for very slow going. It took us all afternoon to go 8 miles.

We spent the night in Bahuichivo, originally our early lunch stop, and decided to take the "old," more traveled route, if there was one. This started with a water crossing drop, but the road got better and we even got into 2nd gear sometimes. It was still slow going, often steep, and with frequent washed-out areas or deep ruts of hardened mud, but we had nice weather and fun riding.

Our good fortune temporarily ebbed outside of Chinipas, as we had to face two long, enormous mudholes. I didn't even attempt these and let Doug ride my bike through both, with a spectacular show of flying water and mud. The bikes were so caked with mud that I had to push away clumps of mud to get into my saddlebags.

Doug's saddlebag mount had broken, so we spent the morning getting it welded in Chinipas. We also asked about the way to Alamos, and locals said there was a road, but we had to cross a river. That proved to be the biggest understatement of the trip.

Pedestrians take a boat to cross, but the boat had no way to load a motorcycle. Passersby indicated that that the water wasn't that deep upriver, and showed Doug by taking him across in a truck. Indeed, if you stayed in the car tracks, it never got above knee deep, but it was LONG, about 200 meters. Doug got his R80-PD through with a lot of splashing, one stall, but without dropping. Due to my lack of success with water crossings, and long since having abandoned pride, Doug rode mine across too. But he got bumped off the car track and headed nose-first into deeper water! I ran out to help, but the water was flowing fast and the front wheel was lodged in sand. We struggled frantically to rescue the drowning motorcycle, water streaming over the submerged engine, before 3 Mexican men appeared and pushed the bike out in a few minutes. It took us nearly 2 hours of drying out the bike and and jumping from Doug's bike to get it started again. Getting in an out of Chinipas was by far the hardest thing we'd done so far!

It was 3PM and we'd gone 2 miles that day. Now we rode up steepest, tightest climb I've ever been on. This road was absolutely relentless, with no chance for breaks, and every corner extremely tight and cambered. The surface was rough enough that the tight hairpins could not be ridden too slowly, but so tight that they could not be ridden quickly! This dilemma terrified and exhausted me. When we finally got to the top, I burst out crying from the strain and the relief. I'd just forcibly improved myself as a rider, tenfold.

We ran out of daylight and camped that night, our first and only night. We built a fire, melted more clothing and prepared ourselves for a very cold morning, elated with our accomplishment.

The road down was even worse, very very slow going, with huge jagged rocks, ruts, crags, rocks, rocks and more rocks. Of course, it was narrow and steep and curvy too. Sometimes I was just bouncing down one rocky step to another, or riding along a slanted edge. We passed a few 4-wheeled vehicles, all pickups or huge trucks, no cars. I don't think I could have made it up this stuff! This time I wasn't as scared, I seem to have less trouble going downhill than up, but it was still difficult, jarring and required full concentration. We were too busy to take photos of this road, unfortunately. It was by far the toughest road I've ever ridden.

Finally the road got easier, flatter and sandier. It was great to get into 3rd gear for first time in four days, but this took us to pavement and to civilization. Our adventure was over.

We spent the night in Hermosillo, and cranked back home the next day. We didn't know about California's January rainstorm yet, though we found out when we were rained on for the last 600 miles, the most exhausting part of the ride. After 1124 miles in 24.5 hours, we arrived at 6:00AM, at which point Doug zonked out. I was so wired from the ride that I went into work and didn't sleep until 11pm that night.

G/S travel is very addicting. Conquering obstacles, physical and logistic, while discovering a new place is exhilarating! Some of it may seem like a huge hassle, but even the broken clutch debacle was an adventure, testing our resolve. The snow, river crossings, mudholes, and incredibly rough roads, tough at the time, make for for wonderful memories now. We both loved Mexico, loved exploring and facing new things every day, loved the beautiful scenery and warm people, and loved how wonderful we felt being there.