Gila Cliff Dwellings And Then Some

Tue Apr 12
(Take a deep breath to make it through this one.) My shoulder was acting up again all night and I wasn't sure we would get to do any thing today but a pain pill in the middle of the night helped. We got up early to drive to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. This was another narrow, winding scenic drive.



Gila River

At the visitors center we learned that the feared Indian Chief Geronimo was born very near there at the "headwaters of the Gila River."

Once there we hiked up the bottom of a narrow canyon

and then up a couple hundred feet to the level of the cliff dwellings.

A guide met us there and walked us through each cave explaining what was known about the Mogollon Indians that lived there around 1300 AD. These dwellings were quite large and impressive and they exist within five of six caves. As we were guided through many of the rooms within each dwelling I could feel the spirit of the ancient people who lived here.

The hike was a little over a mile round trip. On the return trip we stopped at Gila Hot Springs to see the hot bath pools.

As we drove in their was a lady sitting on a bench ahead of us and when we got closer we could see she had nothing on but a hat. We were in awe not only that she was naked and oblivious to our presence but that her entire body was tanned very dark. We took a couple of quick pictures of the pools and left. On this trip we also saw a lot of deer,

a couple of squirrels, blue herons, ducks, and a wild turkey. We drove back on highway 35 past Lake Roberts,

through the town of Mimbres and then stopped to view the Santa Rita open pit copper mine.

Mining here began around 1800 and had a storied past including being shut down due to trouble with the Apaches around 1851 and then resumed in the late 1800's. The open pit was started about 1910. We then headed on up to Glenwood along highway 180 where we camped for the night in a small forest campground just North of town. We took the bicycles down and took a short ride. On the return trip it was getting dusk and a couple of deer almost ran into Dad from the edge of the highway.