The TRAVELER'S JOURNAL: January fourteenth starting a week's adventure in the Copper Canyon.

Barranca del Cobre, or Copper Canyon, is the best known of a series of six dramatically deep, water-carved gorges on the western slopes of the mountainous Sierra spine of northern Mexico. Covering four times as much area as Arizona's Grand Canyon, and in places more than a quarter mile deeper, these canyons are semi-tropical at the bottom and alpine at the top.

Together, they comprise a vast, rugged labyrinth of towering cliffs and jagged ridges so high they confine the clouds. Waterfalls plunge over thousand foot drops. Huge chasms encompass yawning voids navigated by buzzards and eagles. Oak, pine, pinon and juniper prosper in the stony, upper slopes. Cactus and scrub brush cling to mid-walls. Far below, by the river banks, banana and mango flourish.

Exceedingly remote, Copper Canyon is homeland of the Tarahumara, Native Americans who took refuge here 500 years ago, to escape enslavement by Spain's conquistadors. Their reclusive descendants still inhabit these deep valleys, following the traditional ways, living beyond the grasp of civilization. Moving with the seasons, they hunt, fish and farm the deepest fissures of this realm. Their homes are crude stone or log cabins, sometimes built into caves.

Few paved roads penetrate this wilderness, none traverse it. The only through access is a single rail line, a stunning engineering feat that took nearly a century to complete. The 400-mile trip from the Gulf of California to the city of Chihuahua in the east is one of the world's great railroad adventures. Tune in tomorrow, as we climb aboard.

FMI For Copper Canyon railroad information contact: www.railsnw.com or 503.793-0523. For tours Columbus Copper Canyon Travel www.canyontravel.com or 1 800-843-1060. For hotel information or reservations, contact Balderama Hotels in Mexico, (681-8-70-46)

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