The Scariest Day of My Life (Part 1)

After returning from Divisadero, and Curtis checking out what the Three Amigos had to say about the possible alternative route out of the Canyon (which was "No se"), we headed out and down.  This was supposed to be the highlight of the trip -- little did I know that it would be the most frightening, and yet exhilarating and exhausting activity I had EVER undertaken.

Bikes on the main drag in Creel while Curtis was talking to the Three Amigos

Waiting at the Train Depot in Creel

The total trip from Creel to Batopilas is approximately 72 to 75 miles. The first 30 are paved and easy to travel.  As you go along the vista opens up and you are treated to some very nice sights.  The turnoff to Batopilas is at the village of Napuchi with the village of Samochique nearby. Some of the information lists one or the other as the turnoff point. There is a Pemex station just before the turnoff which is one that we were not expecting!  Our map conflicted with the actual road and very good signage, so we stopped to make sure and a Senor in a truck was kind enough to confirm the turn for us so off we went.

A little basic information before the trip down. Creel is at 2338 meters which is 7715 feet and Batopilas is at 495 meters which is 1633 feet. This means we are descending 6082 feet into the Canyon!  The government had obviously been improving the road from the turn off as it was early on newly paved 2 lane, then changed to graded aggregate, then later to graded pea gravel (which caused the front wheels of the bikes to swim -- very disconcerting).  Here are some pictures of the vistas and sights before we started the journey down (in the last one you can just make out some of the road and switchbacks below).

If you zoom in near the bottom you can see the trails used by the indigenous people.

See that faint line way down there?  That's part of our road!!!

Without warning the road changed from graded gravel to two track, dust, rock (not aggregate), goat, cow and burro dung, along with the animals themselves.  We decided at this point to mount the GoPro camera on my helmet for a part and video some of the descent.  Curtis, as the stronger off road rider than I, went ahead, and he encountered to boys, one riding a burro, and the other walking along with it.  As I came up, the burro had apparent kicked the off the one, and the two of them were chasing it.  You can see it all below (please bear with all the setup) [Again, we're going to have to wait until we have access to a land line in order to upload video, so we'll update upon our return].

What we can report is that for the next 4+ hours we sent back and forth on switchbacks where one wrong move and you get to experience first hand a Game Over Event -- hundreds, if not thousands of feet straight down without any barrier.

So for the next 4 hours and 40 some odd miles we (I) inched down 5 feet at a time, turn by turn, rock by rock.  It was not too soon into it that just the knowledge of the camera on my helmet was too much of a distraction on the level of concentration necessary that I turned it over to Curtis.  What he caught was one of the bars that occupied one of the innumerable switchbacks, and a goat clinging to the side of the mountain watching us come down [Video will be added when we get to a land line].

I thought that when we got to the first bridge that we had made it, but was I wrong, we had to go up and down the other side, and herd some cattle before we finally got to the bridge to Batopilas.

First Bridge to Cross