After a few kilometres of highway, we turn off onto a gravel road that the guy at our favourite burrito stand in Guachochi had told us about. The road winds along a river and takes us through small villages in bucolic rural country-side.

Riding down the main street of a small Chihuahuan village.

Cowboys on the road with an unfortunate calf.

A colony of black vultures congregate around a dead calf in a field.

Rock walls line the road...

... which is zig-zagged by the river. Cass almost, but not quite, manages the ford without getting his feet wet.

The morning passes happily enough in this sunny forgotton valley but we have some slightly disturbing encounters. A women, part of an incongruous group of well-dressed professional looking types, in a small village is surprised to see us passing by. After making the usual enquiries about our trip, she issues dark warnings: “Be careful here. Be careful…of the people. There are bad people here.” We promise to be careful and continue on our way.

We stop to eat by the river, where we admire canyon wrens, fly-catchers and kingfishers going about their business by the water. A friendly cowboy fords the river on his horse and invites us to lunch at his house but, after some discussion we politely decline, figuring that this unscheduled detour would probably take us all afternoon.

The road continues to roll up and down along the valley and still we don’t meet any ostentatiously bad people but at the point where the road returns to the highway a group of heavily armed military personnel in full combat gear are stopping all cars exiting the valley. They stop us, too, and ask us questions about our trip before sending us on our way.

We are back on the highway and our aim is to reach El Vergel before dark. I guess we should have known that we would have to pay for yesterday’s twenty-five kilometres downhill run but I don’t think any of us are fully prepared for the thirty kilometres ascent that we are now presented with. The roads winds up and up and up, in a series of merciless switchbacks, and darkness falls without any sign of El Vergel. We find ourselves camping high in mountains in a gravel pit by the highway, as the occasional truck lumbers by in the night.

In the morning, we finally reach El Vergel and stop to stock up on food again. We are definitively turning off the highway in a few kilometres and are uncertain of where we will be able to shop next.

The bikes lined up outside a shop. Food shopping in Mexico often requires going to every store in town to get everything you need. This the third or fourth shop we visited in El Vergel.

Meat drying outside yet another general store; bags of 'carne seca' are available inside.

We leave El Vergel and turn off the highway again onto gravel roads. At some unmarked and unremarked place, we finally cross the state border from Chihuahua into Durango. This unnoticed moment, however, is something of a milestone – it has been six and a half weeks since we crossed the border into Mexico and we have only explored one state so far.

We are in remote mountains and logging is clearly an important part of the local economy. We stop by the road to camp and, in this instance, there is no need to search for firewood to warm us and to cook our dinner on; cut timber lies in piles all around us.

In the morning we set off, riding alongside an icy stream. The road is tough going with lots of steep rough climbs as we follow a ridge which runs by some of the highest peaks in the Sierra Madre. Logging trucks pass by in both directions, empty in the direction we are riding and piled high with precarious loads in the opposite direction. They throw up clouds of choking dust but on the down hill runs it is easy to overtake and outpace these vehicles, as they inch along pumping their noisy air-brakes.

We are back in the high mountains: an icy stream runs beside the road.

Logging trucks pass us on the road with impossible loads swaying side to side secured by a few flimsy straps.

The road unwinds slowly and as the going is tough we find it impossible to meet our target mileage. Eventually, we find ourselves camping in the snow on another anonymous mountain top, uncertain of exactly where we are.

Afternoon sunlight on the road...

...fades into evening on a mountain-top.

Morning brings more of the same but in the afternoon we finally top out and leave the forest. An expansive valley opens up before us and the road leads down into it.

Snow by the road as we set off again in the morning. (Photo: Jeff Volk.)

Jeff and Cass consult a local for directions.

These cattle guards present a serious road hazard for cyclists - their logic escapes me completely...

... but perhaps that is why there is a need for so many road side shrines.

Finally in the afternoon, we top out and an expansive valley opens up before us...

... and we are finally rewarded with a long descent in to the valley.

The descent takes us past an active silver mine, a hectic hive of frenetic construction activity, and then into the somehow slightly edgy town of Guanacevi, which I circle around for some time in the gathering dusk looking for the boys who, as usual, have been riding far ahead of me.

Eventually I find the guys and we leave town hurriedly to find a camp. We find an openable gate leading into a field where an emaciated, and probably doomed, puppy, quickly christened, Spot, joins us and snuggles up with Jason for the night.

But Spot turns out not to be our only visitor for the evening. Two army men creep silently into the camp from the brush, appearing suddenly out of the darkness into the circle of firelight in full combat gear. Clad in black balaclavas, helmets, jungle camouflage greens, big black boots and armed with knives, pistols and long assault rifles they cut quite menacing figures, which their surly attitude doesn’t soften at all.

“What are you doing here?” We explain.

“This is private land! You can’t camp here.” We offer to put out the fire and move but then they suddenly capitulate and tell us that it is OK.

Even so, while one man asks us questions – which range from the usual ones about our trip, to suddenly urgent enquires as to whether or not we are carrying drugs or arms, to positively outlandish queries – the other pokes around the camp shining his searchlight into tents and panniers until his batteries fail him. The conversation is slightly surreal: “Aren’t you scared?,” the spokesman asks; “Of what?” Jeff parries; “Cows!” is the surprising answer. Well, frankly, no… heavily armed men creeping into camp, perhaps – that is the thought that occurs to me.

Finally, they leave with a final warning to be careful of rattle snakes; creatures of which I have seen no trace in my journey, through not only Mexico, but also New Mexico and Arizona – as far as I know they are not particularly active in winter.

Rain falls during the night, necessitating a hasty pitch of the tent – these days, when I can, I prefer to sleep under the stars and the previous night the sky had been relatively clear. The morning brings rainbows and, unfortunately, also a stiff head wind which makes the eighty mile ride on the highway to Tepehuanes more punishing than it might have been otherwise.

We wake to a double rainbow arching over our camp.

Cass is a keen photographer who takes a mean picture. Here he jumps from his bike on the crest of a hill and drops to the ground in the middle of the road to snap me climbing the incline.

Riding on very windy days is my least favourite cycling scenario. I struggle along without really appreciating the beautiful countryside we are passing through as I am buffeted backwards and forwards across the road. The rocky walls alongside the road, however, house a number of religious figurines which attract my attention.

A cluster of road-side shrines.

Another odd roadside shrine.

Eventually we make it into Tepehuanes where after eight days of camping out and pretty tough riding we decide to treat ourselves to a night in a hotel and a good fish dinner.

A nice fish dinner in Tepehuanes...

...is quickly demolished.

In Tepehuanes, I finally decide to take action on my self-diagnosed giardia infection, a phenomeon which by now has been collectively christened “The Worm” by the group and makes me, at times, a less than desirable travelling companion. Luckily Mexico has a relaxed attitude towards self-medication and it is possible walk into any pharmacy and ask for pretty much whatever drug you please. So, after a little internet research, I choose my poison and for less than $2 I am soon armed with a course of Flagyl with which to enter into combat with “The Worm”.

An abandoned car on the road to Urique.

A roadside shrine on an otherwise undistinguished hilltop.

The following morning I set off again on Christmas day hoping to arrive in Urique before nightfall and hoping that, since I had three days start, Cass and Jeff don’t pass me on the road before I get there. After yesterdays climb I can scarely believe that there is more to do today but it turns out to be the case and it is several hours before I arrive at a lookout where I can see Urique sitting along the river in the canyon far below.

Urique sits in the deepest canyon in North America. The town has been there since the mid-1600s, with road access only since 1975.

The road descends around 2000 metres in a crazy series of switch-backs over fourteen kilometres. It is not a ride for the faint-hearted. I take the descent easy, taking care to avoid the Christmas drunks roaring up the hill in the opposite direction in their pick-up trucks.

Glimpses of the road descending.

As I descend the climate changes. The pines and oak trees disappear and cactus and mesquite appear. Best not to think about getting out of here again...

Eventually, I find myself at the bottom of the canyon and manage to find my way to Entre Amigos, an organic eco-hostel, run by, Keith, an American old-timer who has been in Urique for thirty-five years with his Mexican wife.

Urique has a long history - this decrepit, but still elegant, shop clearly has been here a while.

A corn symbol on a shop front, covering a coca cola sign.

A drunk cowboy on the streets of Urique.

I arrive at El Divisadero mid-afternoon chilled to the bone and extremely hungry. El Divisadero, at 2750 metres, is a famous lookout over the Copper Canyon complex. Copper Canyon, as it happens, is not one, but many, canyons which cover a huge area in the state of Chichuahua and three of the canyons meet at this point. The sight-seeing train stops at El Divisadero and at this time the place, no doubt, is hopping but when I arrive alone on my bike in the middle of a storm only a few miserable Tarahumara huddled under colourful blankets with their handcrafts in front of the posh hotel next to the lookout are in evidence. The taco stalls that surround the station seem all but abandoned.

I lean my bike against the wire fence of the lookout next to the hotel and try to find somewhere out of the driving wind and rain to study my map and take stock of the situation. A man coming out of the building stops to ask me how my trip has been. A terse “Cold and wet!,” is all that I have to the energy to muster but as he turns away I realise he could be a valuable source of information and I question him about the availability of food. The man directs me to a small store above the station which has a fine selection of sweet things and not much else. I stock up as best I can.

As I stand trying, ineffectually, to shelter from the wind next to the store, eating tortillas and candy bars and feeling rather sorry for myself, a group of six heavily armed uniformed security personnel walk up the steps from the station. Half of them stop to pose for me as I get out my camera.

Heavily armed security personnel - I don't know if these guys are police, army or private security but they look quite menacing to me. The state of Chihuahua currently contains some of the most violent places on the planet.

I wander back to the lookout and consider my options; continuing in the sleet and rain is an unappealing prospect and a cup of coffee seems called for. The hotel beside the lookout is a little intimidating but summoning up my courage, I step over the Tarahumara women still sheltering under their colourful blankets by the door and enter.

The man I spoke to earlier, who I took to be a tourist, walks out of the office and greets me. I ask him if there is somewhere I can sit for a while and he directs me to the lounge area which boasts gigantic windows with panoramic view of the canyons. I fall into a comfy armchair as close to the heater as I can manage and take off my sodden, unwaterproof raincoat. My down sweater is also soaked and, therefore, almost useless.

A woodpecker viewed from the comfortable lounge of an expensive hotel with panoramic views of El Divisadero.

A Christmas tree reminds me of the immediate proximity of Christmas.

A man approaches and asks me, in Spanish, if I would like a coffee. Of course, I would.

He brings me a polystyrene cup full of very welcome hot liquid. He returns again and offers a refill and then asks if I would like something to eat. I confess to not having the budget for eating in such a posh establisment but he shrugs and says it doesn’t matter.

Before long, he returns with a bowl of lentil soup. It is very good.

Next he brings me a bowl of chicken stew and sits in the armchair opposite me while I eat and so I tell him about as much of my journey as I can manage in Spanish. He is clearly impressed by the fact I have ridden around 10 000 kilometres from Alaska and points me out to the guests passing through the lounge. Various people, all Mexican tourists, come to question me about my trip and I answer as best I can in a mixture of Spanish and English. For a second or two I entertain the idea of asking how much it would cost to spend the night here but eventually I prise myself out of the warm and comfortable surroundings and head outside fortified by food and admiration.

The weather is slightly better and a few rainbow patches shimmer over the rocky vista in front of me. I get on my bike and return to the highway.

A little sunshine mixed in with rain...

... make for fragments of rainbow.

I ride forty kilometres to the dismal hamlet of San Rafael where, for the first time, I am refused water when I ask for it. People stare at me coldly and as dusk is approaching I want to put some distance between me and the town. The paved road ends here and I ride a couple of kilometres on slippery mud before pulling off the side of the road to find a place to camp.

Various trails run through the forest and litter is scattered carelessly on either side. I eventually find a reasonable clean spot and gather sodden ice encrusted wood with the hope of building fire big enough to warm me for the evening. Snow still dusts the ground and I am beginning to feel that it is possible that I may experience a white Christmas in Mexico. The fire is reluctant to start and I use almost all the fuel for my alcohol stove getting the wet wood to smoulder half-heartedly.

In the morning, I light another fire ad take some time to dry my tent and sleeping bag before setting off again.

A reluctant fire in the snowy woods. Somehow, this is not really how I envisaged Mexico.

Cold camp in the morning - sleeping bag hanging to thaw the ice crystal that form on it during the night.

My map, somewhat confusingly, indicates two possible approaches to Urique. One appears significantly shorter than the other but the turn-off seems to be close to San Rafael and I decide to back track a little to be sure I haven’t missed it. I stop to question people passing on the road but they have no idea what I am talking about and look bemusedly at my map. As far as they are concerned there is only one way to Urique so I give up and continue on the muddy road in the direction I have been travelling. I pass some road works and head downhill where the road surface degenerates into a muddy soupy mess which gathers on my wheels and clogs my mud-guards until forward motion is impossible.

Incapacitated, I wait to see what will happen next. Several vehicles pass but they don’t react to my predicament. Eventually I flag down a truck and explain my problem as best I can. The men lift my bike onto the back of the truck and drive me a kilometre or so to the top of the hill where the road divides and indicate the route to Urique while they continue on the other road. I get out my tools and remove my mud-guards but still can’t manage to push my bike through the mud.

Incapacitated by mud.

I stand by the road unsuccessfully trying to hitch a lift until the same truck unexpectedly returns. The men tell me they will drive me to where the road starts to descend into the canyon. They reload my bike on the tray and we drive a few kilometres over muddy road before stopping to unload my bike again. Thankfully, the road surface seems navigable here.

As I thank the men and remount my bike, one of them asks if I will marry him. I refuse this proposal as politely as I can before setting off down the hill.

My rescuers from the mud situation.

The nights are pretty chilly and it is very hard to set off early when it is below freezing: ice on the tent, ice on the sleeping bag, drinking water solid ice. Breaking camp is a dismal affair, the tent packed away with ice crystals slowly melting, a cold soggy mess waiting for the evening, and my sleeping bag promises to be damp once the day’s warmth thaws the icy ring around the opening where my breath has condensed during the night.

The sun comes up giving a feeble warmth but even after sunrise the fog persists and riding to the nearest town for breakfast is a painful business with icicle fingers and toes.

A cold camp in a farm field.

The cold foggy morning reveals...

...fields of icy grass...

...and a frozen helmet, forgotten outside the tent.

We are keen to get to Creel without further distraction and ride over the mountainous roads as fast as we can.

The landscape is spectacular but the road steep and unforgiving.

We lunch in a sunny field where we spread out our tents and sleeping bags to dry.

Mexican roads are liberally dotted with shrines and religious images.

An image of Guadalupe painted on a roadside rock-face approaching Creel.

Creel is the centre for tourism in the Copper Canyon area and we decide to make it our base while we gather information. Once we finally arrive we rent an apartment for a few days but, in general, find Creel to be a town without a vibrant heart and reliable information and maps hard to come by.

Studying maps in our telenovella apartment - the fruit bowl centre piece on the dining room table is an astonishing piece of interior decorating that amuses us for our entire stay.

Sunset over Creel - a town without much grace...

...however, we do discover a local cafe with some charm and a wi-fi connection.

After a few days in Creel, we start to make various plans for escape. Jason is spending New Year on the beach in southern Mexico, Jeff and Cass also have a vague plan for a New Year coastal escapade via the Copper Canyon Express to Los Mochis, while I am thinking, despite the temptations of beaches, sunshine and fish, that I would like to visit Urique at the bottom of North American deepest canyon. Earlier research has uncovered, Entre Amigos, a eco-garden hostel there that sounds appealing and I am foolishly undaunted by the 2000 metre descent to reach it.

The Copper Canyon Express train is way most people see the Copper Canyon complex. It passes through Creel and is probably the reason for Creel's popularity with tourists.

Jeff and Cass race over the mountain to try to catch the store before it closes at 4.30pm while I follow at a more sedate pace. I arrive just before 5pm to discover the guys deep in conversation with Klara, the manager of the Gila Hot Springs camp site. Jeff had arrived at 4.20pm, ten minutes before the store closed, to find the doors already locked and the store owner not disposed to reopen them despite our dire foodless predicament. Klara, the store owner’s sister-in-law, obviously a far kinder soul has raided her larder to provide us with ground elk meat, pasta and a tin of tomato sauce for Jeff, who is vegetarian. Dinner assured, all that remains is for us to set up camp before submerging cold, tired, aching bodies in natural pools of hot water.

"Here you are!" "You are here!" Read it as you wish. I am pretty glad to be here at Gila Hot Springs.

We ride down to the campsite by the pools and hurriedly put up our tents. I am first in the water and it is only hunger that drives me out a couple of hours later. After a fine elk bolognese with pasta, I am back in the pool until after midnight. The water is warm but the outside temperature is well below freezing. Finally I fall into my tent and sleep but I am up long before the sunlight spills over the rocky bluff to the east and back in the hot water.

Hot water! Pure bliss. Jeff soaking it up.

I could have spent a long long time at the Gila Hot Springs. Photo: Jeff Volk

Lying in the water looking up at the rocky cliffs and rustic wooden structures. Photo: Jeff Volk

Whimsical artworks surround the hot pools at Gila Hot Springs. It was beautiful place in every way.

More art work surrounding the pools. Photo: Jeff Volk

Hot springs.

Warm in the water but still icy out...

...an icy seat waiting for me.

Sadly, I cannot stay soaking in hot water forever. The frosty prospect of packing up an ice encrusted tent lies before me. However, Klara, very kindly, has offered us a lift to the top of the mountain we crossed yesterday and we are all grateful to be spared the prospect of a 2000 foot climb, with severe grades, on our bicycles to get back onto the road to Silver City. We pile our bikes precariously on the back of her husband’s flat bed truck and enjoy the luxury of motorised transport for a short while, feeling that life doesn’t really get much better than this.

The road seems innocuous, certainly no rougher than many of the gravel tracks I have followed since I left the coast, but within an hour of leaving I find myself sprawled on the ground, tangled up with my bike,  panniers strewn untidily about after coming around a corner at speed and hitting a patch of deep sand. It takes me a while to pick myself and the bike up and get back in order. The front pannier rack is seriously bent, the front brakes a mess, my left knee grazed and my right leg is clearly going to be black and blue in a day or so. Cass and Jeff are far ahead and there is nothing much to be done but keep going so that is what I do.

The force of my crash bent my front rack quite seriously but nothing a few zip ties can't fix - at least temporarily.

And the other damage - my bruises after a few days have passed. Photo: Jeff Volk.

The rest of the day passes uneventfully enough. We ride until after dark, trying to cover some ground, before setting up camp beside the road. The next morning we wake to showers of freezing rain.

Leaving Pie Town the clouds are heavy. We pass old ranch buildings.

Cass and Jeff stop for a photo break.

Before too long the predicted snow arrives.

The first flurry of snow. Our friends in Pie Town told us that we would only get a dusting but this looks like it might get serious.

Storm clouds brewing.

It's cold out here...

...and the sky is looking more and more ominous.

The snow is nothing, however – mud is what really slows us down.

Jeff and I have to take our mud guards off and even after this procedure, the only option is to push the bikes on the grass parallel to the road. Photo: Jeff Volk

Jeff's chain snaps under the press and so we take a break for mechanical repairs.

My bike starts to disappear under snow.

My brand new drive chain is already taking a beating.

Snow, overall, is a surface that allows us to make more progress than the mud.

A snowy road is better than a muddy road.

Anna and Cass cycling over the plain. Photo: Jeff Volk.

It is very cold and finding a sheltered place for a lunch break is something of a challenge.

Cass trying to find somewhere a little sheltered to take a lunch break.

Packing up after lunch to set off again.

Cass cycling across the icy plain.

It is slow going, though, and we only make about 30 miles before the sun set and we make camp in a small snowy canyon to the side of the road, building a huge fire to warm us and melt snow to supplement our meagre water supplies. Having company changes the experience of an evening out in the wilderness – there is far more potential for campfire philosophising on topics from the sublime to the banal.

Cold but beautiful. Dawn at camp.

Tents in the snow.

I am still excited by snow and how beautiful it is - despite any discomfort or inconvenience it causes.

Jeff cycling across the snowy field from our canyon campsite.

The next day the road get seriously mountainous. We have three major climbs over mud, snow and ice. Towards the end of the day a man in a pick-up truck passes an hour or two before sunset and warns that a blizzard is heading our way with up to two feet of snow predicted. We try to reach the tarmac but the terrain is difficult and after a few spills in the dark on icy descents with precipitous drops to the side we decide to make camp and leave the matter in the hands of fate. The night is cold but we wake to clear sunny skies. We have a long descent to a tarmac road which leads to the Gila Hot Springs.

Cycling in the forest. Photo: Jeff Volk

Down the hill. Photo: Jeff Volk

An alligator juniper. In between the storms the sun shines and the mountains are a beautiful place to be.

There is no place I'd rather be. Photo: Jeff Volk.

Morning sun in the meadows of Yosemite Valley.

I haul myself back up the hill to the turn off to the pass.

Looking down - the road goes up and up and up and I'm not even back to where I was yesterday afternoon.

The climb out of the Valley is pretty stiff and it takes an hour or two of pedaling before I reach the Tioga Road turn off again. However, once on the Tioga Road, even though the elevation gain is constant over about forty miles, the gradient is never really steep. The weather is gorgeous and the scenery is absolutely spectacular.

Climbing the Tioga Road is a visual feast.

In theory I have to complete the pass in one day because all the campsites at higher elevations are closed for the season but as I want to take some time to enjoy being here I find a quiet out of the way corner to put up my tent for the night. I am extremely glad, now, for my new sleeping bag and in the morning when I do my dishes and filter water from a stream I find that all my wet things freeze together.

A quiet place in the mountains to spend the night. It was well below zero overnight.

Snow thawing and freezing again by the road.

A constant stream of visual splendour passes by as I continue climbing.

A view of Tenaya Lake from Olmsted Point.

The view from Olmsted Point.

Tenacity.

Tuolumne River. (Thanks, Steve ;-))

Tuolumne Meadows.

Tuolumne Meadows.

The vegetation has changed again - I don't know this tree but it is beautiful.*

Approaching the pass.

Getting to the top.

Made it!

* A lodgepole pine. (Thanks again, Steve.)