The Apache call the Sierra Madre the Blue Mountains.
The range of nine thousand-foot peaks runs for a hundred miles from the Sierra el Tigre south to the Basvispe Valley. Three rivers bisect it: the Rio Aros, the Rio Bavispe, and the Rio Yaqi. The Rio Bavispe guards the isolation of the Sierra Madre. The continental divide flanks the range on three sides. The mountains mark the border between Chihuahua and Sonora.
Hidden deep in the mountains are small fertile plateaus. It is hot in summer, but the temperature can fall to freezing when the sun slips behind the ridges. It isn"t a landscape for timid men – it"s a vast, menacing land dominated by mountains and sharp rocks, precipitous cliffs, snakes, jaguars, and wild cats. It is a place for retiring armadillos and badgers; the benign white
