The Devil's Backbone

The Devil's Backbone is a section of the highway Mex 40, approximately 13 kms. long, located midway between El Salto and Mazatlan. This highway has some of the best scenery of all Mexico but to drive it is not for the faint hearted. It is a good highway with nice smooth pavement, full of hairpin turns and a main route for truckers from the Texas border to the West Mexican Coast. The highway leaves the Pacific Coast at sea level and climbs toward Durango to an altitude of 8000 feet.

While many people have said that one should not drive it with a big RV rig, I feel that a 40ft rig would have no problem providing one follows a few basic rules:

1. If your unit is large and does not have any alternate braking system such as; an exhaust brake, standard transmission to gear down, magnetic braking system or any other alternate system and you still want to drive this road, drive it uphill from the coast.
2. Be prepared when you approach a hair-pin turn because….(a) If you are on the outside of the turn any on coming truck towards you will be in your lane! NO DOUBT ABOUT IT, it will be in your lane. (b) If you are on the inside of the turn, the front of the truck approaching you will be in his lane but the back of the truck will be in your lane! NO DOUBT ABOUT IT, it will be in your lane.
3. So what do you do about it? Well, it's not as bad as it sounds. Not all, but many of the hair-pin turns have a gravel outside edge large enough to pull off the road in an emergency to let the truck by. (This happened twice to us) When approaching the turn, drive slowly looking ahead and if it is clear, continue on. If a truck is coming your way, pull as much to the right as you can and STOP until the truck(s) are by you, then carry on. Always drive at a speed that you can come to a complete stop in a hurry. There were many times we came around a corner to find the traffic stopped in front of us waiting for oncoming trucks to get by them.
4. Drive like you are prepared for anything. If your RV is extra wide…think twice about it..

While we were driving through the backbone, a car in front of Billy was driving too fast, went too wide around a hair-pin turn and side swiped a stone retaining wall. He flew off the wall coming to a complete stop sideways right in the middle of the road blocking traffic both ways. We could not get by him! We stopped because we had no choice, and we knew not too far behind us there were trucks coming down the hill! The young driver and about 10 other people got out of the car, stood around it looking at the damage and lifted the hood to see why the engine stalled. STUPID! Billy and Marilyn jumped out of their truck and ran over to tell them they had to push it off the road immediately! Betty jumped out of our truck and ran back up the road to try to flag down any vehicles before they hit us. I pulled my unit over to the side as much as I could to give anyone behind me an extra 30 feet to stop. Billy managed to get the driver back inside to steer then with Marilyn and several people pushed the car backwards, up hill, until it only blocked the downhill lane. All this took about a minute and a half then we were back in our rigs, drove by the stalled car thereby allowing open passage to downhill traffic in one lane and got the hell out of Dodge. We were extremely lucky not to have any heavy semi's on our tail, they may not have been able to stop in time! And it was a LONG way down.

When we first started out on this adventure we all had a list of things we each wanted to see. Ben, Lynette and John were interested in the fishing, Sherry in bird-watching, Betty in the ancient ruins, Marilyn the ruins and shopping. Larry's wish list was driving up or down the Devil's Backbone. I heard so much about this highway. It is named the Devil's Backbone for a reason. I have to admit I was very apprehensive as the time drew closer and closer. The road climbs to a height of over 8000 feet. The vista is something else. Bill and Larry drove with extreme caution. We were amazed with the amount of truck traffic. It is the main northern route that links the East Coast to the West Coast. They are building a cuota (toll) road but after seeing the terrain it will be a long long while before the project will be completed. It took us 4.5 hours to travel 193 miles. We averaged less than 40 km per hour but it was worth it.

Our next adventure will be a three or four day train ride from El Fuerte to Creel to explore the Copper Canyon (Bill's wish list).
....Betty

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