Desert Magazine of the Southwest

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ROGER
MITCHELL
Above:
Fording the
Rio Bavispe.
Opposite
page: Rio
Bavispe
country.
Left: The old
church at San
Miguelito is
well
maintained.
8
THE RIO BAVISPE has its headwaters
high in the mountains which form the
Continental Divide separating the
Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua.
As tributaries cause it to grow, it
flows northward, a thin thread of life in
an otherwise arid land. About 35 miles
short of the border, the river makes an
abrupt hairpin turn and starts south
again. For the last 40 years the water has
lingered awhile behind Angostura Dam,
a pre-war project built under the supervision
of engineers from Hitler's Third
Reich. Eventually the river continues its
flow southward, often irrigating fields as
old as the first padres. Finally the Rio
Bavispe loses its name where it joins the
Rio Areos. From here on the two streams
are known as the Rio Yaqui as they
continue south to empty into the large
Novillo Reservoir.
From where the Rio Bavispe starts, at
an elevation of 7000 feet in the mountains
of Chihuahua, it is a journey of
Desert/ November 1978