The Gila

It was a dark, quiet night that morphed into a quiet morning.  My little campsite was isolated from any human noise.  I'm thankful that I moved away from that crowded site last night.

The hotsprings location is marked by a rock cairn.  Tall reeds surround the spot.  Muddy water swirls in the area.  Sadie stepped into the warm water and quickly got out of the water.  While the hotsprings registers 109F (according to the Visitor's center), the edge of the springs is warm.  It simply didn't look inviting.  I continued the hike, determined to hike two miles and turn around.

I didn't get very far.  The rhyolite cliffs came into view. The trail went up an embankment and skirted under the cliffs, and then just stopped.  There was no sign that there was a landslide here.  Was I to ford the river at this point?  I just preferred to turn around and hike elsewhere, somewhere with more shade.

The next trail was the Gila River trail just north of the Cliff Dwellings.  A young brunette uniformed park volunteer couldn't give me much information about this trail, which starts out traversing through a thick canopy of trees.  "I hiked that earlier this summer with my group and we ended up hiking in a big circle" she said.  "the signs aren't marked very well!"

Now that was encouraging.  I waited in the truck for a few young hikers to get past me before starting with the dogs.  A young man jogged back to the parking lot, looked around, and then jogged back to wherever he came from.  I followed the trail that soon crossed the river twice, but then left the river and crossed an exposed meadow.  This was the river trail? I stayed to the left, hoping the trail would meet up with the river in the next canyon. Perhaps on a cooler or overcast day I'd have explored it some more, but I was not enjoying this and neither were the dogs.  I now had had enough and again turned around.  I was done hiking for the day.

Shortly after coming back to the trail intersection, I met up with a father and what I assume were his three sons, including the teen that I saw jogging to the trailhead earlier.  They were lost and the teen was trying to find out where the trails led.  They were looking for the TJ Corral trail.  The trailhead is a mile south from the Cliff Dwellings, but the other end of the trail was off the trail we were on.  The trail was not numbered on the park map they had (what good is that?) We chatted a bit before the dad decided to resume their hike up the side trail.

Clouds were now getting darker.  I did not want to get stuck in a flash flood in this area.  I stopped at a campsite to quickly wash my hair, and then got on the return drive back to Silver City.  It started rumbling as I drove off.  I was barely on a high point when it began to rain.