2006/02 Southwest USA trip (NM-AZ) - Gila Cliff Dwellings |
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Tuesday January 31st
As expected, we had another night below freezing, and another sunny morning. On our way back down the forest road, we met a whole family coming in on their ATVs (all terrain vehicles), with Grandpa and Grandma bringing up the rear on their own machines. We drove back down the road to Silver City, backtracking this time, but enjoying the canyons and great scenery from the other direction.
We did some shopping in Silver City and then took the road to the Gila Cliff Dwellings national monument. This is a narrow, twisty road that took us up and over into the Mogollan mountains and the Gila national forest. It’s a good blacktop road, but still slow going with all the twists and turns. There was snow in the gullies and the shaded spots, so we would have to watch the weather.
We arrived at the national monument too late to visit the cliff dwellings but the Visitors Centre was still open, so we had enough time to buy my Golden Age pass, giving us free admission to all the national parks and monuments and forests and recreation areas, and half-price camping in those places. This time we camped just down the road at the Scorpion campground, which turned out to be free, so we only had to pay half of free! The campground is just a parking area along the road, but the road only goes to the cliff dwellings, and the property owners have been gone for 700 years so we didn’t expect much traffic.
We were situated between the cliffs and the Gila River, which was almost dry, but apparently it causes 
catastrophic floods in some years. The most recent flood had taken out the bridge and all the campground’s plumbing.
We walked a short trail behind the campground to a tiny cliff dwelling, also about 700 years old. I climbed in through the tiny 
door just to see what it was like to live in such a place. I don’t recommend it as nobody had swept up for 700 years, but it was probably better than sleeping in the open. There were some nicely preserved petroglyphs there and further along the cliffs. We also walked back up the road to where Sandie 
had seen some as we drove in, including this picture of a deer. The temperature was diving as we walked back, so it was going to be cold again.
Wednesday February 1st
It was 24 degrees overnight, and still icy cold as I walked up towards the cliff dwellings. The ranger there told me that we’d been lucky as it was normally down around 4 degrees at this time of year, and that we should appreciate 
the heat wave. Later, we drove a short way up the road and then walked the trail up to the caves. The trail follows a stream that apparently always flows, even during a drought. It was cold in the canyon and the stream still had ice on the edges. When we climbed up to the caves, we could see why the Mogollon people had chosen to live there. The winter sun shone directly into the caves and warmed them, while in the summer the sun would be much higher and leave them in the cool shade.
There was a parks service interpreter at the first cave and he was honest enough to admit that no one really knows much about 
the people who lived at this place. They left a few paintings on the rocks, but not much else other than their buildings. We don’t even know whether they left the area 700 years ago or whether they all died there. He 
was surprised that Sandie had spotted the petroglyph down on the road. He said it is one of the best preserved but hardly anyone gets to see it.
There are about 40 rooms built into five caves. This national monument is unusual as it allows visitors to go into the caves and even into some of the rooms. We crawled around the caves for most of the morning and then visited the museum and headed back towards Silver City