This week’s dream: Sierra Madre

The Sierra Madre mountains of northwest Mexico are superb trekking territory, says Hugh Thomson in the Guardian. This is the rugged country in which Pancho Villa, one of the leaders of the Mexican Revolution and "the toughest bandit of them all", hid out after launching a raid on the US in 1916 – the last ever invasion of the North American mainland. Ten thousand American soldiers combed the region's "intricate canyons" in search of

him for months – and left empty-handed. Today, with no wanted revolutionaries at large, you rarely come across outsiders: it is a wilderness "just waiting to be explored".

The "most striking thing" about these mountains is how green they are, with forests of Apache pines and a "rich profusion of oaks, from the crinkle-cut desert varieties to silver, blue and willow-leaved". The region is best explored on foot, with the assistance of local muleteers, so that you can stroll along with a day-pack, happy in the knowledge that there's "a crate of Pacifico beers on the back of