Motorcycling Tizapan Canyon

Today Patrick Stirling and I went on an interesting motorcycle ride, partly pavement and partly dirt. For some time we had been fascinated by the contour lines of a deep canyon sliced into the escarpment on the south side of Lake Chapala near Tizapan. As we poured over our maps we could see a trail switchbacking up the wall of the canyon to the plateau above. This just had to be seen for real.

What is unusual about this area is the substantial flow of water coming off the plateau, through the canyon and into irrigation ditches for the farm fields below. There is no other place that I know around Lake Chapala where water flows abundantly in the dry season.

The Pasion River is especially beautiful as it cascades through the forest. It almost looks like a park. Unfortunately it apparently is poluted by the large town of San Jose de Gracias on the plateau far away.

The canyon widens out further upstream near Las Sauces. A short distance beyond the village is a pleasant n0-charge campground with shelter and barbecues. The horses especially like it.

Backtracking to Las Sauces, there is a sign for the turn to the west and up to El Zapote. This is where the road gets rough and switchbacks higher and higher to the plateau.


About 5 km southwest along the plateau from El Zapote, we came to a dam holding back 6 km long Lake El Volantin and shortly afterward pavement for the first time in 20 km.

Double click to enlarge

As the day was not over yet, we headed along the backside of the mountain ridges just south of Lake Chapala. This led us up to a rough dirt road connecting La Milpilla to El Sauz right over the western flank of Mt. Garcia and finally home on pavement. See Patrick's GPS track above. It was a good day's ride, sharing the experience with a riding buddy.