The Devil's Throat

First day canyoneering in Monterrey!! It was a great day! We intended to do Matacanes; however, the civil authorities closed the canyon due to the rain. Not sure if it was due to high water or the roads. In speaking with Chuy, the owner of the local guiding outfit called Ibo, he thought the closure was unnecessary. Nevertheless we were not about to have this deter our first day at canyoneering! The next best option was a canyon called the Devil's Throat or La Garganta del Diablo as the locals call it.

Our group consisted of Heather, David and I and our friends Evan and Chuy. The ride to the Devil's throat was a long drive across 4x4 roads. Quite a bit of jostling! We arrived at our destination and we were excite to have a great day in the Devil's Throat.

It was a short hike to the start of the canyon. The forest was very unique to us. Many of the trees had what I could only call beards coming from them. It was looking to be a great day!!

The canyon was not disappointing! For the most part it did not have very much water. The first part of the canyon did have flowing water but nothing more than chest deep. Very scenic. About half way through the canyon the running water dried up and left nothing more than a few stagnant pools of water. Only a couple of them were swimmers.

Shortly after the water dried up we came to the narrows section which is the section that gives the canyon its name. Narrows are not usual for Monterrey canyons so it was a real treat. The first rappel into the narrows section was about 100 feet into a keeper pothole. Evan and I went first. One word description of this pothole...muddy! Two words...slimy mud! All the mud made exiting this pothole that much more difficult!! Right at the base where we were to exit the pothole the mud was at least 6 inches deep. Once I completed the rappel, Evan was already there. To minimize the mud on my feet, Evan gave me a piggyback ride from the rope to where we needed to climb out of the pothole. Evan braced himself against the wall of the pothole while I inched up his back until I was standing on his shoulders. With one last little push I was able to get to the first ledge to exit this keeper pothole. However, by this time my shoes had accumulated quite a bit of mud and made standing there let alone climbing the rest of the way out extremely difficult. With some more partner assists and the help of a couple of bolts I was able to climb out of the pothole and set a rope for the rest of our group to use to exit the keeper. All of us were quite muddy after this experience! The first picture to the right you can see is David standing at the bottom of exiting the keeper. Notice that his feet sank into the mud over his boots. The next picture shows David and Evan at the two different stages of exiting this pothole. Evan is pratically out at the top while David is at the first ledge. The last two pictures gives a little bit of an idea how muddy we became!

The rest of the canyon did not provide very much opportunity to wash off the mud other than stagnant water. The rest of the canyon was not as muddy but provided some awesome rappels and awesome scenery! This is definitely a great canyon!