The river is the reason Mina Clavero exists as it does. Born from streams high on the Pampa de Achala, it tumbles down through the valley, carving small waterfalls and natural basins as it goes, then bends north at the edge of town to meet the Panaholma and form the Río de los Sauces. The water is famously cold and clear. It can also be sudden: rain falling in the high mountains just 25 kilometres away can swell the river while the town itself stays sunny, so since 2009 flood-warning systems have watched the upper reaches. By the time the river reaches the La Viña dam downstream, it has gathered the whole valley's runoff into one of the region's most important waterways.

The valley's name reaches back to the Comechingones, the people who lived here in independent clans, each under its own cacique. One of them, Milac Navira, led the clan whose land became Mina Clavero, and many believe the town's name descends from his. Others trace it to a colonial mining family named Clavero. Spanish expeditions came surveying for minerals after Córdoba was founded in 1573, and by the 1890s the area was known for the supposed healing properties of its waters. The town owes its spiritual founding to the priest José Gabriel Brochero, who in 1887 persuaded Doña Anastasia Favre de Merlo to open a guest house here. Brochero spent his life serving the people of these sierras; in 2016 Pope Francis canonized him as the first saint born and died on Argentine soil.

Mina Clavero is rally country, and it produced the sport's Argentine hero. Jorge Raúl Recalde was born here in 1951, a driver they called El Cóndor de Traslasierra. In 1988, behind the wheel of a Lancia Delta Integrale, he became the only Argentine ever to win the Rally Argentina, and the only South American to win a round of the World Rally Championship. He died in 2001 of a heart attack while competing in a rally near Villa Dolores, still racing the mountain roads he had grown up on. Argentina's Congress named his hometown the national capital of rally and declared the day of his death the national day of Argentine rally. The mountain stages around Mina Clavero still feature in the championship.

Set at 915 metres between the Achala and Pocho ranges, Mina Clavero claims a microclimate of its own - dry, bright, and famously sunny, with cool nights and, by local count, around 320 sunny days a year. The terrain invites every kind of motion: trekking, horseback riding, climbing, mountain biking, kayaking, and paragliding over the Río de los Sauces. Nearby, the Quebrada del Condorito National Park opens into a gorge some 800 metres deep where condors ride the thermals. In town, the Museo de las Campanas displays more than 600 bells gathered from around the world. With lodgings reportedly outnumbering residents two to one, Mina Clavero is built to welcome visitors - by day to its river beaches, by night to its casinos, theatres, and streets full of life.