Barrancas del Cobre

The Barrancas del Cobre, known in English as the Copper Canyon, are not one canyon but a whole network of them cut into the Sierra Madre Occidental in southwestern Chihuahua. Six rivers draining the western side of the Sierra Tarahumara carved the main gorges, and all of them end up feeding the Río Fuerte, which runs out to the Gulf of California. Together the system covers somewhere between 60,000 and 65,000 square kilometers, depending on the source, and it is often compared with the Grand Canyon in Arizona: larger in extent and, in places, deeper. The name comes from a ravine known for its copper mines and from the copper and green tones of the canyon walls.

The usual list of major canyons includes Urique, the deepest in Mexico at about 1,879 meters; La Sinforosa, with the Rosalinda and San Ignacio waterfalls on its slopes; Batopilas, where an old silver town sits on the canyon floor; Candameña, home to the Basaseachi and Piedra Volada falls and the 885-meter rock wall called El Gigante; Huapoca, with archaeological sites of the Paquimé culture; and Chínipas, one of the least visited, with the oldest mission in the sierra at its bottom. The Tararecua canyon, visible from Divisadero, is part of the same landscape. Geologists date the origin of this network to tectonic activity more than 20 million years ago.

The canyons are the home of the Rarámuri, or Tarahumara, a people estimated at around 70,000 who traditionally move between the cool highlands in summer and the warm canyon bottoms in winter, and who are famous for long-distance running, including the rarajípari ball race along canyon trails. Because the elevation range is so large, the climate changes completely on the way down: Douglas-fir and pine forests above about 2,400 meters, oak woodland in the middle, and figs and palms at the subtropical bottoms, where summer can top 40 °C.

Most visitors see the canyons from the Ferrocarril Chihuahua al Pacífico, known as El Chepe. The line, finished in 1961 after decades of delays, runs 652 kilometers between Chihuahua and Los Mochis with 86 tunnels and dozens of bridges. Today it runs as two services: the tourist Chepe Express between Los Mochis and Creel, stopping at El Fuerte, Bahuichivo and Divisadero, and the Chepe Regional, which covers the whole line from Chihuahua city to Los Mochis and also stops at smaller stations. Divisadero, on the rim, is the classic viewpoint and the site of the Parque de Aventura Barrancas del Cobre with its cable car and zip lines.