Construction on Batopilas Road
June 4, 2012
The normal road from Samachique to Batopilas has been under construction for some time now and one has been able to continue to travel down this road with only minor set backs due to the construction until now, however, things are changing as they begin paving the canyon switchback section of the road because there is no room for any detours around the construction anymore. When this construction project is finished, there will be a paved two lane road from Creel all the way to Batopilas, cutting down travel time from 5.5 hours to just about 3.5 in total.
From this point on, the normal road to Batopilas will now only be open from Sunday at noon through Tuesday evening. The rest of the week the road will be closed for construction and one must take the New Routes of Adventure road that we’ve been talking about for the last year, from Samachique, along the back roads to Batopilas in order to get through. This will make the trip longer, about 5.5 hours total from Creel (the old time it used to take to travel the dirt/gravel road on the ‘normal road’ before construction began), but the length of the trip will be worthwhile as the views are just amazing, especially along the last 500 kilmeters of the trip where one is traveling on the rim of the canyons between Batopilas and Urique. The photo above shows the new road from Samachique to Batopilas.
Please note that this New Route will NOT be a viable option during rainy season as one must cross the Batopilas River to reach Batopilas and during the rainy season the river is just too high to manage that.
