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Sinforosa Canyon

The Queen of Canyons as it is called, or simply, the most beautiful canyon, is rather a long way from Creel, Divisadero, and Areponapuchi, so out of the way, in fact, that it seems that few tourists make it there. That is a. hame but it is symptomatic of tourism in Mexico. The nearby town of Guachochi, while pleasant enough, does not add much to the tourist's experience. The town has several guesthouses and a fairly nice hotel, Los Cumbres, with the necessary modern conveniences for these aging world travellers, but there is no picturesque town square, no quaint streets to wander in the evening. In fact, the streets are rather alarmingly dark at night showing the poverty of the area.

Sandro & Yvonne

But we had come to see Sinforosa Canyon, which was classed as superlative in the Chihuahua state magazine that we had been given in Creel. Since we had to get from Creel to Durango and since Guachochi was on the route we wanted to take, we determined to go and see what the hype was about. As we drove toward Guachochi we happened upon our Swiss friends, Sandro and Yvonne, who were bicycling toward town on the same road. We arranged to get together in town, ate dinner together that evening, and invited them to abandon their bicycles for a day and come with us in the car to Sinforosa.

It's a good job we did. Not long after our dinner together there was a mighty thunderstorm with lots of heavy rain. The next morning when we set off out of town, we found the dirt road marked on the map had become a mudbath. I don't think the two bicycles would have made it. But we did. Slithering and sliding all the way, it took us a little over an hour to do the 12 kms from Guachochi to the canyon. At the end of the road, we thought perhaps we had made a wrong turn as we were confronted by what looked like the gate to a private estate. Then someone noticed a small sign near the gate that said this was the entrance to Sinforosa and announced that the entrance fee was 10 pesos each. On cue a man appeared to collect the fee and to open the gate so that we could drive in. A couple of hundred yards further along, we spotted a concrete area bounded by a railing that we guessed correctly was the mirador, the lookout point.

Jan & Gerry at the Mirador

We parked the car and walked over to the railing half expecting to be underwhelmed, but the view was all that we had been told. The lookout hung out over the edge of the canyon and gave panoramic views of a huge side canyon that fed the main canyon way off in the distance. The distances are enormous. This canyon, the deepest of all at 1800 meters, stretched about halfway back to Creel. The four of us stood there goggle-eyed for a while and then agreed that this was worth the trip.

Once we had had time enough to enjoy the canyon from a distance, we decided we ought to get a closer look and so picked up our packed lunches from the car and headed off down a road into the canyon. The road was unpaved, of course, and like the road from Guachochi, completely sodden. After only a couple of steps, the mud started caking to the soles our boots and became heavier and heavier until the weight tore the mud off and the process started again. Thankfully the mud only lasted as long as the road, which wasn't more than a couple of hundred yards down the hill to the point where a stream trickled down into the canyon. We hopped across the rocks that formed its bed and found a narrow trail that started to wind down the canyon wall. From the trail we could see the lookout point, now high above us and the rest of the canyon still ahead and below.

Hiking into Sinforosa

Relaxing after the hike

We had no thought of climbing all the way down, of course. For that we would have needed to spend the night. We were hoping to find a nice vantage point for lunch, enjoy some views, and then climb back up. Well, we found everything but a comfortable place to sit because the canyon walls were so steep and the path clung so tenaciously to the wall that the best we could do was sit down on the path under the shade of whatever scrub tree we could find. It was breathtaking in more ways than one, and especially on the uphill climb. But thankfully, the mud of the morning had hardened so at least we had a solid surface underfoot.

The drive back was uneventful, only a little less slippery as Sunday traffic had kept the mud nicely churned up all day. We stopped only to get a photo or two (including the one below) and then it was back to Guachochi, goodbye to Sandro and Yvonne for probably the last time as our paths were soon to diverge and back to the hotel for a welcome shower.