When hikers gather around the campfire to share stories of their most unforgettable experiences in the great outdoors, you can be sure you´re not going to hear about trips that came off without a hitch, exactly as planned. No, it is far more entertaining to go back to those occasions when Nature proved itself most capricious and Murphy’s Law reigned supreme.
This being the case, I am happy to present, in his own words, Jim Boles’ story of the Incredible Hike to Rio Caliente, which took place last week on March 10. It started at Los Chorros de Tala and ended 16 kilometers away at the popular Rio Caliente picnic and bathing area in the Primavera Forest. (For details on both sites, see chapters 19 and 26 of Outdoors in Western Mexico, Volume 1).
Jim Boles is a Texan, living in Ajijic, who calculates he has probably participated in some 500 hikes during the last five years and, these days, is often the one organizing and leading them. Curiously, Jim was uninterested in hiking before coming to live alongside Lake Chapala. “Back in Texas,” he says, “there were just too many mosquitoes, snakes and tornadoes.” But, on occasion, Jalisco’s usually “perfect” weather may hold a few surprises of its own. Here is Jim’s story in his own words.
“Have you ever awakened trying to figure out whether what you did yesterday was for real or just a dream?
Waking up the morning after, I was thinking the hike on Tuesday in the Bosque Primavera might be all just a dream ... or did it really happen?
It was all so surreal ... We got to Donas Donuts as planned at 8 a.m. All seemed normal. Then one of the hikers advised that the weather forecast predicted rain.
Having heard this before, we headed out. Almost immediately, we saw the first signs of a light drizzle. It sprinkled a little off and on. We thought nothing of it. There were still patches of sunlight here and there. By the time we got to Tala it was pouring. We rationalized that it was probably okay at the trail head and we proceeded to Los Chorros.
Sure enough, when we got to the trail head there was only a very light sprinkle. Some donned trash bags for rain protection as a precaution but soon the weather cleared.
The weather was perfect for viewing the Los Chorros waterfall and hiking along the Río Salado river. All was well as we walked along the clear, sparkling stream. That is until the road ended, the trail played out and the bushwhacking started. We battled brush and thigh-deep wet grass along the river for about thirty minutes before deciding to go up to the ridge to see where in the heck we were. To our surprise, we could see the valley filled with manicured fields of sugar cane and pastures along the river. By this time it was warm and the sun was shining. It was so nice. We were congratulating ourselves on what a good decision we had made in not being discouraged by those errant forecasts of dismal weather.
As we reached halfway, little did we dream of what lay ahead. We came upon several groups of grazing horses with some newborn foals ... just of the sort you would see in dreams of a perfect hike. We stopped and enjoyed our snack at a beautiful picnic area adjacent to the river, pausing to take in all the natural beauty around us in a perfect, tranquil setting.
Then about fifteen kilometers into the hike, we saw the skies beginning to darken and heard the sound of distant thunder. Not ten minutes later, it was pouring down cold rain with intense lightning popping all around us and thunder that shook the ground. The dream hike was now a full-blown pesadilla (nightmare)! We picked up the pace to get to the Rio Caliente picnic area parking lot.
Our original plan was to get to the parking lot, hitch a ride to town and then take a taxi back to our cars. Now we were desperately trying to put together a plan just to get out.
With all the weather going on, we still were impressed with the steam rolling up off the Rio Caliente. It seemed all very eerie. During all this we met two shirtless young men moving briskly toward us, clad only in running shorts and backpacks. They seemed oblivious to the storm. Just the encounter you would expect in a dream.
When we did eventually arrive at the large parking area, there were several cars there, but only one occupied. The driver looked as though he was waiting for someone to emerge from the river. We proceeded on, thinking we could stop him if he came out.
We hadn’t walked over 200 yards when we saw a small pickup truck coming out toward the road we were on. They were obviously a couple of local vaqueros. We flagged them down. As we have come to expect, they were more than ready to help in any way. All 13 of us and Levi, Larry’s collie, crowded into the back of the side-boarded quarter-ton truck.
It only gets more bizarre. We are freezing and soaked. We passed several locals on the way out of the Bosque. You can only imagine their shock to see thirteen gringos in the back of a small pickup truck in the middle of a rainstorm. It was one of those “Hey Maria, come quick ... you are not going to believe this” kind of moments. It gets worse. As we left the town of Primavera and turned onto the main highway the rain turned to hail. We are being pummeled by hail all the way to our intermediate destination, the El Borego restaurant in La Venta.
Finally arriving at the cafe, we took up a collection for our guardian angels in the truck. I can only imagine the conversation in the cab and how many times they have recounted their version of the story. We bid farewell to our new-found friends.
Inside the restaurant it wasn’t a lot warmer. They did have some coffee and hot tortilla soup as well as an open-pit barbecue and a grill that provided much-needed thawing. We called a cab to transport the three drivers back to the vehicles.
At this point we realized the problem hail poses for Mexican drivers. There were numerous delays for traffic accidents. An hour later we returned with the cars to find our fellow hikers a bit more thawed but ready to get home. Needless to say, the heaters in the car were welcomed.
The photos we took do not even begin to tell the story. We would have had more pictures, but our hands were too cold to operate the cameras.”
Too bad they never got a chance to jump into the deliciously hot river!
What can you do to minimize the problems of an unexpected downpour? For years, I used a heavy, rugged, Swiss Army poncho which I brought along only when rain was obviously in the cards. Finally, after a number of “unforgettable” experiences of my own, I broke down and bought a good, lightweight, guaranteed waterproof poncho weighing only eight ounces and rain pants weighing ten, from Campmor in the USA. They keep me warm as well as dry in an emergency and now have a permanent place in my rucksack.
Jim Boles’ Rio Caliente hike is about 16 kilometers long. If you’d like to repeat it (hopefully minus the downpour, lightning and hail), I’ve put the route (courtesy of Duncan Poole) on Wikiloc.com under “Chorros to Rio Caliente.”