Barranca Grande, Mexico (Packraft)

In desperate need of some sunlight, my partner and I recently paddled through Mexico’s Barranca Grande, located in the state of Veracruz.  The name Barranca Grande, or “Grand Canyon,” is appropriate: The river Huitzilapan (also known as Antigua or Pescados) courses through a jungle-choked gorge of awe-inspiring depth and verticality.

For miles, no roads or trails cross the river, and cliff walls loom over the river.  Countless species of plants dangle from the cliff walls, some trailing roots down into the river below.  Epiphytes--plants whose roots don’t touch the ground--grow on trees and rock walls, collecting water from rain showers and passing clouds.  This lush, ethereal ecosystem is known as a cloud forest.

This otherworldly landscape isn’t too far from Alaska by plane and bus.  Alaska Airlines flies to Mexico City, and multiple other airlines fly even closer, to either Puebla and Veracruz.  With Mexico’s outstanding bus service, it is relatively simple to take a bus (if you speak Spanish and can describe where you want to go) from any of these hub cities to Xalapa, then Coatepec, and then to a small crossroads near the put in for the Barranca Grande.  If travelling by packraft, you can float as far as you want, including the ocean.

For a small and distant river, there are a lot of resources to plan a trip to the Barranca Grande.  Luc Mehl did a packraft/mountain climbing traverse including the Barranca Grande, and has a detailed trip description and map at his website www.thingstolucat.com.  Even more detailed maps, which are probably essential if you’re trying to find the right bus from Coatepec, are available by becoming a member of www.sierrarios.org, a small organization dedicated to exploring and protecting the rivers in the mountains of Central America.  

The river trip begins when you get off the bus on the side of the road at the lip of the canyon, several thousand feet above the river.  Looking upstream, sugarloaf hills and dense jungle crowd the river’s headwaters.  Improbably, there are a couple small towns down by the river, with a narrow road that descends to them.  Walk or hitchhike down to the bridge, after which the river enters a much narrower gorge.  That bridge is the last concrete you’ll see for a long time.

For the first 10 kilometers, the river Huitzilapan is more like a large creek, similar in size to Eagle River near the Nature Center.  It descends steeply, through a long and joyous succession of rapids.  Through some fluke of geology, nearly all of the rapids have clean lines, and despite the river’s substantial gradient are fairly safe to navigate for Class IV or stronger paddlers.  These rapids wind through a winding and seemingly endless canyon.  Around each corner, there are more towering pillars or rock or another high waterfall pouring down the cliff walls.  One of these waterfalls cascades directly into the river, free falling hundreds of feet from the cliffs high above.

The river’s first major confluence marks the end of the narrowest, most remote section of the Barranca Grande.  For the next 20 kilometers, high cliffs and jungle still surround the river but there are occasional small farms and trails in the river bottom that appear to be accessible only by foot.  As the valley widens a bit, the rapids diminish in intensity, and mostly are Class II with a few Class IIIs.  This is a relaxing and delightful stretch of river to paddle, with sparkling whitewater and miles of views of towering cliffs in jungle.

As the canyon walls begin to taper down, Rio Pescados joins Rio Huitzilapan, and marks a major change in the character of rapids.  While rapids upstream mostly had clean lines, massive boulders create messier and steeper rapids with more technical lines as well as stronger, more pushy whitewater.  The rapids quickly escalate in intensity, with a particularly steep and boulder choked drop before the confluence with the large river called Teosolo or Sordo.  At this confluence, the river changes character from a large creek to a large and powerful river, with rapids that are larger and more technical than Nenana canyon or Lion’s Head on the Matanuska.

Take time to scout these rapids, as many have hazards including but not limited to large and sticky holes and the potential for undercut rocks and pins.  A particularly nasty drop is about a kilometer and a half downstream of the Rio Sordo/Tesolo confluence.  The river cuts through a layer or bedrock, constricting into a narrow and undercut slot.  There is a relatively easy portage on river left.  Approximately two kilometers downstream of this constriction, a bridge crosses the river.   While it would be possible to take out here and get on a passing bus, that would mean missing miles of outstanding whitewater and outstanding scenery.

Large, boulder-choked rapids continue for the next ten miles or so to the town of Jacomulco.  The river (still called either Huitzilapan, Antigua, or Pescados) pours over massive rock bars followed by large pools.  While the rapids here are larger than upstream, the pools provide more time to recover in the event of a capsize.  In general, the safest lines are in or near the main channel of the river, which sometimes divides around rocky islands.

A suspension bridge, road bridge, and riverside restaurants signal your arrival in Jacomulco, which seems to have a rafting-based economy.  There are bakeries and other stores in town if you need to get more food for continuing downstream.  Below Jacomulco, the rapids are much smaller, mostly Class I with a few Class IIs.  Good campsites also become harder to find as more farms come right up to the edge of the river.

Paddlers in the Barranca Grande should take all precautions associated with any Class IV wilderness trip.  Every participant should be a strong paddler with understanding of whitewater rescue techniques.  It would be wise to carry an extra paddle, since there are parts of the canyon that appear impossible to walk out of.  The pictures of the canyon on the internet don’t do a good job of conveying the intensity of the whitewater.  It is continuous for the first ten kilometers, and both big and technical for the last ten miles.  It is similar in difficulty to the second canyon of Six Mile or the Talkeetna River canyon, with places that are even more remote than the Talkeetna.  

Either the outstanding whitewater, the breathtaking scenery, or the lush jungle would justify a trip to the Barranca Grande.  With all those attributes together it is one of the best packrafting trips, even by our elevated Alaska standards.  And the river generally is the best level to paddle in early winter, which is the best time not to the be in Alaska.