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A horse trip through the Copper Canyon of Chihuahua, Mexico with ridemexico.com.

You can also view this film at: Los Caballeros no son Pendejos

Four of us just spent a week riding horses through the Barranca del Cobre country of Chihuahua with Norberto Padilla Rodriguiz and his assistant, Mario. Some of us traveled to Ciudad de Chihuahua from Canada by air, and some from El Paso and Ciudad Juarez by bus. The bus ride takes about 4.5 hours on a good four lane toll road. Ciudad de Chihuahua is very clean and calm for a Mexican city. It is not a tourist city so it is low key. We visited the Pancho Villa museum and found it to be a little chaotic. His old mansion is interesting but the exhibits are almost all similar to each other. They also have no chronology and it is difficult to pick out information about Pancho Villa’s life. I still don’t know much about it even though we spent a few hours there. There is a prison with bullet marks from the revolution close to the museum. A fellow who runs the hostel across from the train station told us you could hire prisoners to work for you, but you were responsible to return them each night. He implied that if the prisoners weren’t returned, you might have to fill in for them.

From Ciudad de Chihuahua we took the famous Copper Canyon train to Creel. This takes about 6 hours and is a great ride. We met Norberto in town and worked out the details of our trip. The plan was to ride from San Rafael to Urique, at the bottom of the canyon, climb the other side by a route Norberto hadn’t done, then hook in to the Camino Real and re cross the canyon back to the highway at Cusarare. Although it seemed like nothing was ready to go for the next morning, Norberto had things ready to go by 8 the next day with a little help from Olivia and Kelly.

The first day’s ride was through rolling country on the plateau above the Urique canyon. We were all impressed with the type of terrain the horses could negotiate. The trails are very rocky, steep and generally gnarly. You wouldn’t want to ride a mountain bike on most of them. The plateau is covered in pine forest and there is water in some of the small drainages that empty over the canyon rim. We made camp at Mario’s sister’s house in Churro, a little community near the canyon rim. It has a healthy population of chickens and dogs. His sister made us some tasty tortillas and we hung out around the fire under the stars. This is where I got the photo of Mario sitting by the fire.

The next day we descended to Narango which was about 3000′ down into the canyon. We thought that the horse were taking it to the next level with the steep, rocky descent. It was nerve wracking until you realized that the horses were good at it and that you could trust them. The views are incredible and when you ride a horse you can really see the landscape as you pass through it. Norberto pays a lot of attention to his horses and never seems to push them to far. He makes them work hard but he respects their limits. We ended the ride at Mario’s house which is a semi tropical paradise of citrus trees and flowers. As you descend into the canyon the climate becomes more mild. Mario’s wife made us dinner and we ate in their two room house by the light of their solar powered florescent tube. The Mexican government has a program that provides affordable solar power systems to these villages. We saw small solar systems on a lot of the houses throughout the area.

From Mario’s main family home we rode to his new home in Urique, which he built so that his older son and daughter could attend school there. The little adobe house is right on the Urique river so we had to spend an hour swimming and lounging on the beach. After lunch, we took the horses down and took them for a swim. most of them had never gone swimming before so it was pretty exciting. We stripped down and rode them bareback in to the river, then tried to hang on. The town of Urique is more tranquil than Batopilas. It didn’t have a hostile edge which I felt in Batopilas the year before. We ate a seafood aguachile at the local hotel that was amazing and we drank a bunch of cheap beer. This was Kelly’s birthday .

Now we had to climb 5000′ out of the canyon to the south rim. We followed a side canyon up until we reached switchbacks that ascended to a hanging valley. By this time our horses were breathing hard and soaked in sweat. We gave them a good break then rode on for another 15 minutes. From here we walked the horses to the rim so we wouldn’t completely wear them out. At one point we almost lost the load off of our pack mule. It had shifted on the pack saddle and almost rotated underneath the mule. Norberto said that if that had happened the mule would most likely have had a panic attack and kicked all of our belongings all over the countryside. Up on the rim we came to a small mine that was surrounded by all sizes of geode. You could crack them open on the ground to expose the crystals inside. We rode on until dark and made camp in an old corral on the edge of Cienaguita.

After packing up we went in to town to get supplies. We also needed to ask about the route ahead since it was new to Norberto and Mario. Supposedly Cienaguita had not been visited by many tourists. It is fairly prosperous for an isolated village. The marijuana trade must be good in this area. We followed the rough road to La Renga, which was a long scenic ride along a ridge system. We arrived at camp at dark and had fire under the stars. The moon was getting fairly full by this point.

From here we had to find the Camino Real and follow it to the old gold, silver and copper mines in the Barranca del Cobre. Olivia got her GPS tuned into the Mexican topo map that Norberto had. It took us a few tries to find the right trail, but once we found it, it was obvious we were on the right track. The Camino was built to ship ore from the Sierra out to Ciudad de Chihuahua. It is enforced with stone walls and has the feel of something ancient. There are grooves worn in the slick rock sections by hundreds of years of mule trains making their way over the rugged trail. We descended through Guacaybo and made camp just before dark in the ruins of the old mine works. There is a man who lives here who supposedly raped his three sisters and killed his mother. He was expelled from Guacaybo and now lives in a shack in the ruins. He is a known thief so we had to keep an eye on our stuff. Aside from him, the place is incredible. There is a warm spring just behind camp where you can take a shower. The river has beautiful green pools to swim in. There are citrus trees among the stone ruins.

None of us were raped during the night so we went to visit the mines in the morning. Mario stayed behind to watch our stuff. We met the famous thief at his shack and he is a bit crazy looking in the eyes. He ended up borrowing a knife from Mario to open a can of sardines. Mexicans are trusting people. The mines are fascinating and eerie, like a derelict ship. We felt that there must be a lot of bodies buried in the area. From the mines we crossed the river and rode up to the opposite rim. The horses climbed quickly and the landscape of rugged green canyons dropped below us. At the top we visited a derelict hotel with a burned out dining room suspended over the canyon rim. From here we rode back to the highway at Cusarare. We did the last half hour by moonlight.

Exploring the canyons with Norberto is well worth it if you like a good adventure and are interested in travelling by horse. He is easy going, into exploring and is a professional. I haven’t been on very many guided trips but I was impressed with Norberto. He was givin’er all week. He is easy to relate to and he is just a good guy to hang out with. The horses are also excellent and they seemed to take the riding to a new level every day. This is one of the best trips I have done and I have a lot of trips under the belt. It is interesting to see a landscape from a horse; the pace is right. From the saddle you have an unimpeded view and you don’t have to concentrate on your feet. Also the Sierra Tarahumara is rugged enough that the roads are either very rough or they don’t exist. It is still largely a land of trails.

The climate varies from hot in the canyons to below freezing on the rim at night. However, you can’t bring much clothing because the horses can only handle so much weight on the rugged trails. The best is to bring the clothes on your back, plus a few warm things and a good light sleeping bag. You need a good set of riding boots that are also good for walking on rugged ground. Make sure the heels aren’t too high. Marco broke one of his off and finished the trip in his flip flops.

Log on to el aventurero for more information about Norberto’s trips.