21-Jul-2007 -- The Nogales 4x4 off-road team decided early in the summer to move ahead and conquer an additional confluence point on the State of Sonora, Mexico. This would be the 3rd. point awarded to the Club since we started to add this kind of great adventures into the regular activities of our club. The selected point this time was 28N/109W located –according to several maps and google earth- deep into the Sierra Madre that divides the states of Chihuahua and Sonora in Mexico.

No close roads or trails were found in all the maps we checked. Actually, the closest ranch was around 8 to 10 Kms to the point in a straight line. Even with that in mind we decided and planned to drive our jeeps as close as possible and then hike from there. The final day arrived and we filled our jeeps with all the necessary stuff including all the camping and hiking gear, as well as spare parts and extra gas for the journey.

This time the team consisted of 7 cars and the confluence hunters were: Guillermo Terrazas, Oscar Cayeros, Jose Acuña, Audias Gonzalez, Francisco Solis, Idier Flores, Rigoberto Arias, Francisco Macoyo, Roberto and his brother Luis Anaya, Julio Arenas and Jorge Lopez.

In the morning of July 20th, we departed from Nogales, Sonora setting to zero’s our GPS units; 3 hours later, Cesar Ochoa, Roberto Ochoa and Julio Peligro joined the team in Hermosillo, Sonora. This last group came to film all the adventure for future TV programming as part of the weekly show called “Sonora Drivers” that is broadcasted in most of the Sonoran Cities. Later in the afternoon we arrived to a small town called Rosario Tesopaco. Here is where the pavement ended and the adventure started. We visited the Mayor, explained him what the purpose of our visit was, and he provided us very good details about some trails that could take in order to get to our destination. Also, he invited us to visit the museum of the town where they have mammoth bones and other stuff from million years ago, all of them found nearby the area. We never thought they could have all these treasures in such a small town.

Next day, early in the morning we departed to our destination following the information on the maps and the GPS units. All the day was filled of beautiful views and many stops to take all kind of pictures and videos of the great mountains in the Sierra Madre. As we were passing for some ranches, we stopped and talked to the cowboys there about the route we were following, and all of them told us that road was abandoned a few years ago and nobody has passed through since then. We did not cease in our objective and continued the ascent until we reach the summit of the Sierra.

Then our GPS’s showed we were crossing from Sonora and into Chihuahua State. We kept on going and finally stopped our jeeps at a mere 85 meters off the confluence point and 1.3 Kilometers inside Chihuahua State according to the GPS. A great achievement since we didn’t have to hike. We just jumped off the cars, took a picture of the area as we found it and then started to run down the hill until we get exactly there in the middle of beautiful ponderosa pines and later on surrounded by clouds in that unforgettable afternoon. We celebrated the moment accordingly after taking all the official photos for the project.

That evening, we set our campsite no more than 200 meters off the landmark as we found a nice flat area, and then the big story started that night … we were all sleeping in our tents after a big dinner of carne asada when a huge roar was listened nearby. At the beginning, nobody said anything but after the 3rd. roar that was listened too close to the camp, everybody started to yell coming out of the tents not knowing what kind of animal was getting close to us. Could be a bear, or a mountain lion, who knows !, some friends jumped into the cars and some of us piled up a big bonfire thinking that could scare off whatever animal was that. Anyways, to make the story short, by 6AM we had everything packed and ready to leave since we couldn’t go to sleep knowing a big animal was too close to us.

Well, we took a route that goes North and ended in Yecora, in the State of Sonora. From there we took the highway back to Nogales. We are setting up a trip in the near future (preferably during the hunting season so we can take at least a gun to protect ourselves) to the same place taking lots of friends from the Club to see if we can identify the origin of the roars; even if we have to drive close to 1400 Kms. To get there.