Where are we going now?!?!

Thursday marked the official start of the Mexico Rendezvous. Everyone arrived with excitement to do some of the world class canyons near Monterrey, namely Matacanes & Chipitin. To everyone's disappointment the civil protection had closed the area again due to the rain. That did not leave very many options for us. The majority of the rendezvous participants did the Devil's Throat (the canyon we did the day before). Naturally we wanted to get a variety of canyons in so the next best option for those of us that had did the Devil's Throat the day before was to go to a canyon called Alemar.

Alemar (not sure about the spelling) sounded like a great canyon! Lots of water and about 7 or 8 rappels with potentially a few jumps. The problem is that it was a 3 hour trip to get to the canyon!! Not to be deterred, we woke up early (hoping for a 6am departure from the hotel) and left the hotel at 7am. The drive took forever!! We took two cars to accommodate us all and to set up a shuttle.

I am not entirely sure, but after we arrived and set up the shuttle, we started hiking about 11am. It was supposed to be a 40 minute hike up to a saddle where we would drop into a valley and encounter the entrance to the canyon. No one with us had done this canyon previously and the beta we received was a bit sketchy. Once we hit the valley floor, we saw a beautiful waterfall in the distance and thought this is where we were supposed to be going. We set off across the valley up the side of the canyon trying to get to the top of the waterfall. Once we got to the top of the waterfall we saw another one in the distance. Too good to pass up we continued up along the ridgeline towards this other waterfall. Wondering if we were only going to find these two drops in the canyon we continued further. Finally after 3 hours of hiking we realized that if we don't start down the canyon we were never going to make it back to the hotel by nightfall. Although it was a long hike, I enjoyed the hike. It was good exercise and the scenery was beautiful. Take a look at this unique tree we encountered along the way.

Down to the canyon floor we made our way and we encountered a nice smaller drop just above the 2nd waterfall we saw. Here is a picture of Heather and Jen Hooper at this smaller drop we descend first. This rappel ended in a nice refreshing pool of water.
The two subsequent waterfalls were excellent rappels both in the 100' to 150' range. One of them had bolts but the bolts were missing the hangers so we looked for alternative natural anchors. After these three drops we decided this couldn't have been the canyon we were told about so after some discussion we decided that we should proceed back down the valley to where the watercourse turned into another canyon. We all agreed this is where we were originally directed to go.

At about 5pm we began the descent of the canyon that was our original target. Within minutes we already at the first rappel. Water was cold and clear! It was already looking to be a beautiful canyon. Due to the time, we agreed that we needed to move pretty efficiently in order to get out prior to nightfall. With four ropes in play, we began moving our group of 10 canyoneers very efficiently by leap frogging each other. The canyon was very beautiful! The canyon ended at a nice pool that allowed us to do some jumping. Very cool canyon with lots of water and about 7 rappels (and a ton of poison ivy!).

By the time we arrived to the shuttle vehicle it was dusk. By the time both vehicles got back to us it was well after 8pm and dark. We were all hungry and went to the nearest town to see if we could grab a quick bite to eat. By the time we arrived this village it was after 9pm and everything was closed. Thankfully, Choy, one of locals, was able to convince a shop to open up for us. After eating we finally arrived at the hotel at about 1am!!

Extremely tire we hoped the next day would have a late start. At 6:15am we received a call from Chuy saying that we could get into Matacanes and we were leaving in 30 minutes...but that is another post!