Copper Canyon Back In The Day

In 1961, the final, most difficult segment of the Chihuahua-Pacific railroad was completed. It went from coastal Los Mochis, Sinaloa up through narrow canyons, over bridges, and through mountain tunnels to the top of the Sierra Madre Occidental at about 4,600 feet, and then on across the northern central plateau to Chihuahua’s namesake capital city. Today we call it the Copper Canyon route.

When I was a junior in college, I made a “Copper Canyon” trip even as the railroad was still under construction. My trip started in April 1961 when I decided to use Yale’s two-week spring break to visit my parents in Temoris, Chihuahua, a little village high in the Sierra Madre. My father was a mining engineer and was prospecting for a Canadian mining company, looking mainly for gold and silver – treasures of the Sierra Madre.

I had learned to speak Spanish as a child when my family lived in a small town in rural Guerrero, so I felt reasonably confident that I could deal with traveling in Mexico, and not having money to fly, I started off hitchhiking. My roommate got me to the outskirts of Cincinnati, and I stuck out my thumb in a chilly drizzle.

I got several rides that took me to someplace in Kansas, then to Albuquerque, and finally one that went all the way to Tucson.  We drove through the night with me asleep in the back seat. The next morning, I made the hop to the border and Nogales. A long bus ride got me to Los Mochis on the coast. Two young guitar-playing Mexicans kept the rancheros coming for a raucous sing-along the whole way. Every time the bus made one of its many pit stops, more beers appeared on board.

At my cheap hotel in Los Mochis, I asked the hotel staff for help in getting a bus or taxi up to Temoris. They pointed me to a bus that would reach a little town, El Fuerte, further up the foothills, but must have been rolling their eyes at the poor gringo who thought there was a road that reached Temoris.

Though the town was the end of the line for vehicles, it turned out to be the base camp for the crews building the Chihuahua-Pacific railway and when the crew chief learned that I was trying to reach Temoris, he offered me a ride on one of the pump-action hand cars that were carrying crew and equipment up the mountain.  I hopped on the platform and was soon moving slowly up the newly constructed rail line, sitting with my feet dangling over the edge of the car. We passed over new bridges with roiling rivers 300 feet below, towering cliffs, vistas of endless rough and wild country, maybe six tunnels. Hours later, we reached the end of newly laid track.

The completed rail bed continued on as a passable road. A pickup waited for the six-man crew; I was invited aboard. Another 25 km or so and we finally arrived at Temoris, population más o menos a thousand, where the crew would spend the night. The pickup stopped at a small cantina on the plaza. Ranchera music and Coronitas welcomed us. I asked the bartender if he knew Mr. and Mrs. Knight and where they lived. Por supuesto. He pointed diagonally across the plaza. That corner house. You can see it from here.

The plaza was surrounded with trees and filled with flowers, a perfect jewel of deep rural México. High mountains rose in the distance. I crossed to the corner house and knocked on the door. The woman who opened it told me it was where my parents lived but that they had left a week ago to work in Guazapares. But don’t worry, it’s not far, about fourteen kilometers, she said, and you can call them tomorrow. She invited me in, gave me dinner, and made me comfortable. My parents rented two large rooms for office, sitting and sleeping in her large house.

The phone system was a crank-up affair that connected several local villages and was conveniently located right in the house. We called Guazapares the next morning, and after a pause while someone ran to locate my mother, she came on the line. She was surprised and delighted to hear I was in Temoris and promised she and my father would be back in the afternoon. They arrived by horseback.

 I went out prospecting with my father (and a gaggle of village kids) the next day. The mountains were scattered with abandoned artisanal mines and rock outcrops. My father chipped off chunks here and there with his rock hammer and placed them in his pack for eventual assay.

After a few pleasant days in Temoris, we flew in a small Cessna that belonged to his mining company down to the famous Naica Mine. The plane took off from a pasture-cum–campo de fútbol–cum-runway, down to Naica in Chihuahua to spend Easter with my parents’ old friends, the mine General Manager and his wife. The mine still operates today extracting lead, zinc, and silver. It is famous for its cave of giant gypsum crystals, some 50 feet long and four feet thick, unfortunately not yet discovered when I was there.

But then it was time for me to think about returning to school. My dad, being much for self-reliance, was all for me going back the way I came, via thumb, but fortunately my mother insisted I get a plane ticket. The mine manager drove me to Chihuahua, a DC-3 took me to El Paso, American Airlines took me to New York. Anticlimactically, two days later I was back in class.

Today the completed Chihuahua-Pacific railroad swings a mile or so to the southeast from the Temoris station up the Río Urique canyon, through the famous Barrancas de Cobre, to Creel and then on to the capital, Chihuahua.

Thanks to Carolyn Kingson for help in editing this story.