Matacanes
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| | Raps:2, max ↨100ft
Red Tape:No permit required Shuttle:Required 60 min Vehicle:High Clearance | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Condition Reports: | 18 May 2025
"Unreal canyon. Definitely lives up to the hype with incredible limestone formations, pristine turquoise water, and epic jumps I will be dreaming about |
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| Best season: | Mar-oct
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25.2965, -100.1906
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Introduction[edit]
This one of the best waterpark-style canyons in the world! It has big rappels, jumps, slides and it goes underground... twice!
Due to the logistics involved with the shuttle, arrangements for private groups may be facilitated by contacting Matacanes Aventurs or Chuy Guerrero. This is an extremely popular canyon for tourists to be led down by guides; in busy times of the summer, there can be more than 500 people in the canyon. Be sure to get an early start to avoid them (hiking down from Potrero Redondo before 7am).
There have been several drownings in this canyon, mostly by inexperienced and under-equipped (i.e., no lifejacket) locals hiking up from the bottom, but one in Sep 2019 of a customer on a commercial guide trip (with inexperienced guides). These drownings happen mostly during high flows at the jump into the second (lower) cave (marked as S6 on the profile). The water creates an obvious hydraulic and flows directly into the wall and down, and even with wearing a life jacket the heavy flow can pull a person under and create a drowning situation. However, the jump is entirely optional as there are bolts on DCL that bypass the hydraulic and land in a calm eddy. At high flows, be cognizant of your ability level and the danger present in the hydraulic, and choose to do the rappel. If you do jump, be certain to have your feet straight out in front of you to hit the wall and walk sideways. If your feet are vertical, you will be likely to be pulled down.
Locals hiking up from the bottom here can climb up and over the second cave and enter the canyon here by jumping, and at times you might see some people here.
Beware poison oak throughout the canyon.
Approach[edit]
Hike down a road which becomes a trail from Potrero Redondo to the first rappel, about 1h30m.
Descent[edit]
Exit[edit]
The canyon opens up and is fairly evident when wetsuits can be taken off. From here it is about 40 min hike following the river downstream, crossing back and forth half a dozen times, to Las Adjuntas where the road crosses the river on a low bridge. There is a lot of poison oak or ivy along the exit trail.
Red tape[edit]
Lifejackets are required, and this is enforced by Protección Civil.
In years past, a guide was required for this canyon, and it was also closed during the winter months, but these restrictions are no longer in effect.
Beta sites[edit]
Chris Brennen's Adventure Hikes (Southwest) : Matacanes- Explore Pangea
Cañonismo.com : Matacanes- SummitPost.org : Matacanes
Wikiloc.com : Matacanes
Trip reports and media[edit]
Background[edit]
Matacanes had its first modern explorations done in the late 1960s. To this point nobody had traversed through the cave sections. Later in the early 80s, Mauricio Garza learned of this beautiful canyon by his employer, and he completed the first full descent including the two caves. He is credited with naming the canyon "Matacanes", which in Spanish means 'Kill the dogs'. "Mata" means to kill, and "can" is a somewhat archaic Spanish word for dog, having similar roots as 'canine'. He chose this name because of the unique and signature funnels in the roofs of the two cave sections from which water pours out, which reminded him of dropping hot oil on foreign invaders from the walls of castles. They would shout out "Kill the dogs!", referring to the invaders as dogs.
Mauricio did the first professional guiding of the canyon in the late 90s, and now owns Aldea Matacanes (aka Matacanes Aventurs above), which is a facility located in the town of Potrero Redondo and offers cabins with showers, meals, and driving logistics for people doing the canyon. He typically offers discounts for canyoneer teams arriving with their own equipment and prepared to do their own rigging. It is highly recommended to stay at Potrero Redondo for several days, and during that time descend the canyons in the area, including Matacanes, Chipitin, Hidrofobia, and others. Stays of 3-5 days or more are recommended. To not stay up there will require a 2 hour drive in each direction on high clearance 4wd road every day from the nearest paved road. At certain times of the year, thousands of fireflies in the field below Aldea will delight your evenings.
Translation of the poster: Matacanes 1969
"We hadn't ever left Potrero Redondo and we liked hiking all the paths in the area ..."
On one of the trips we were curious to know if the loud roar we heard was from a waterfall, when walking along the path that leads from Potrero Redondo to Laguna de Sanchez. We decided to detour to see what it was about, and upon seeing this impressive panorama we wondered if it was the same river as the one in Las Adjuntas.
We decided to return the following weekend armed with a long cotton rope. We went down passing the rope between our legs to make friction, but the descent was very intense, to the point that I had to get rid of my backpack which contained a film camera that was destroyed. Upon reaching the bottom, we removed the rope and advanced through the canyon.
When we reached the second rappel (into the first cave) we decided that it was very dangerous to enter without knowing if there would be an exit, so we returned.
We headed back upstream from the first cave and reached the 30-meter waterfall known as the jump. But we were surprised that there was no way out of the canyon. Desperately we tried to climb out but it was impossible, exhausted we were left with nothing but to spend the night cold and dark on some rocks with wet clothes. The next day we were even more desperate, until in the afternoon a mule passed by, and that's when we started screaming "HELP, HELP, we haven't eaten in two days!" A good man named Juan approaches and sees us scared asking to be rescued. Juan throws a rope at us but to top everything off, it doesn't reach the bottom of the canyon. "Don Juan, wait, we are going to climb to where your rope reaches!" Another fellow came up and tied his cotton rope. Don Juan and his mule pulled us up one by one. We were all grateful to Don Juan. The scare was forgotten after a few days and we returned to make the complete descent.
Translation of the poster: Matacanes July 1997
This was the first group led by our founder Mauricio Garza Muguerza that at that time operated as Matacanes.net.
The group obtained the beta from the now defunct Padilla y Perez company where he worked as Systems Manager and charged each participant 75 pesos to take them on the tour. 7 customers were in his white Jeep of which 5 decided not to do the descent when they were at the top of the first 27-meter rappel.
