Category: Adventure Travel

Mine Riding

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Porfirio Diaz Tunnel

The entrance to a horizontal mine shaft, which we could ride our mountain bikes into, was music to our eyes. The stone opening to the Porfirio Diaz Tunnel sat solemnly and quietly on a hillside in the middle of a barrio in Batopilas, Mexico. Sure, it’d been abandoned for 70 or 80 years. But that was of no consequence to us at the current time. The entrance was circular and about 12 feet in diameter, larger than we’d envisioned. A flat dirt surface/pathway —perfect for mountain bikes —led into the darkness. Even though the place had the ominous appearance of being almost eaten by the solid rock, its persistent beckoning won us over.

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Guaymas, 1971

Adventure lurks………

Man crossing a suspension bridge in Copper Canyon, Mexico
Unexpected Suspension Bridge in Mexico

It was Christmas break of my sophomore year in high school when my friend and classmate Jake and I took off from Denton. We geared up and drove his parent’s VW camper/van (with their permission), bound for Mexico with a stop in Douglas, Arizona. The plan was to meet up in Douglas with an older, more mature person named Jim, whom I knew from the summer camp where I’d worked the previous summer. From there, the three of us would travel to Guaymas, Mexico, where we’d camp, have some quality beach time, and experience a bunch of “neat adventure stuff.”  In the van, we had scuba gear packed away under one of the seats in cardboard boxes, places to sleep, and we must have had some food somewhere.

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Nacho Kino

Missing a Tutuburi

Copper Canyon Kino Springs campsite
Camping at Kino Springs

The countryside opened up as the Silver Trail left the Valley of the Churches. Earlier that day, our group of seven backpackers passed a young Tarahumara man (the indigenous people of Mexico’s Copper Canyon), and I asked him about Nacho Kino. Nacho was an elderly Tarahumara man I’d met while mapping the Silver Trail a few years before, who seemed well regarded in that area.

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The Beer Truck

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Tarahumara house in Copper Canyon, Mexico

      I was in Mexico’s Copper Canyon leading a group of “Chavochi”  adventure travelers. “Chavochi” is basically the Tarahumara word for Gringo, non-indigenous, devil people. Various things happened while we were down there in Batopilas Canyon and the town of Batopilas, which may or may not be related. I think they are.

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Place Names

The names of places……

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Valley of the Monks, Copper Canyon

The various names that are attached to places are intriguing. Some are obvious since they either reflect a physical characteristic or commemorate an individual of importance. But, others not quite so. Many place names tell a story in a few short words—some less straightforward than others, but each worthy of knowing. Here’s a few such stories that I’ve heard. Listen, and maybe you will, too………………..

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The Mine in Potosi’

Exploring the Cerro Rico mine.

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A Bridge to Somewhere

For whatever reason, my wife, Lori, and I ended up in Potosi, Bolivia, on that particular part of our vacation. After considering various things to do around the city, we ended up selecting the “mine tour” option. The city is over 200 miles south of the capital city of La Paz. At 13,400 feet of elevation, it’s one of the world’s highest cities. And, as we came to find out, it’s dominated by Cerro Rico, a big mountain which has been mined regularly for silver ever since the days when the Spaniards were the rulers.

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Lost and Found on the Silver Trail

“You’re not lost, if you don’t care where you are.”

Mountain biking the Silver Trail

At this point, we were some 20 miles from the last little outpost of a town we’d been through. But theoretically, at least, we were about to come to another. Jerry had the best available maps of the area loaded onto his GPS. But it only told us where we were relative to the data it was loaded with. The adage “garbage in, garbage out” came to mind, and soon after, the vision of a web page that said “no data available.”

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Hamburgers and Lizard Head

A group of backpackers attempts to climb Lizard Head and learns the true meaning of climbing.

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Pingora, Cirque of the Towers, Wind River Range, Wyoming

Lizard Head is a prominent peak just north and east of the breathtakingly majestic line of mountains, ridges, and spires in Wyoming’s Wind River Range, known as the Cirque of the Towers. On one particular Outpost Wilderness Adventure trip, we backpacked with two groups of 7 via different routes up to Bear Lake. The lake is on the east side of Lizard Head and served as our backcountry base camp. Once there, we set up two close but separate campsites, each located between the lake and the mountain. The plan was to use each as a base for exploring and adventuring in the area. Since it was during the Fourth of July holiday, we figured there’d be a lot of people in the general area, but few would venture into that particular neck of the woods. And, as a special Fourth of July treat, we brought along freeze-dried hamburger patties to eat, a cutting-edge item back in the ’80s.

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Mountain Biking The Trail of Death

An interesting turn of events while mountain biking some Copper Canyon singletrack.

The Trail of Death
Afterward, we began to call it the Trail of Death.

For the longest time, Batopilas, Mexico, was connected to the small town of Cerro Colorado by just a little bit of dirt road and seven or so miles of trail, just barely wide enough for local burro traffic. Then, a few years back, that same dirt road was bulldozed all the way into that little Copper Canyon town. At that point, most of the old trail had been “improved” for vehicle use, but the last mile remained untouched, where the road took a more direct route.

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Corcovado

Backpackers learn the importance of avoiding high tide due to the realities of sharks and crocodiles in the area.

Backpacking on the Osa Peninsula beach
Beach hiking in Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica

Hiking on the beach sounded like fun. I pictured us walking barefoot on the sand and carrying light packs. In my vision, there were palapas off to one side and multiple limbo contests happening on the other. A gentle sea breeze tousled our full heads of hair and kept the temperature within the perfect zone. The surf perpetually crashed onto what seemed an endless white sand beach. And the waves showered us with refreshing breaths of ocean air as we walked into the heart of Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula.

But that’s not exactly how it happened. Instead, it was more like this:

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