Hee-la Not Gee-la

Looking up at the Gila Cliff Dwellings

(This post applies to the week of March 23-29. I'm way behind!)

In Tucson, we met up with an old friend from Maine.  We visited the Desert Museum together.  As we were looking at the reptiles, the guy standing next to us smiled benevolently as Dave, Linda and I discussed the Gila monster display at the Desert Museum.

"Where are you folks from?" He finally asked, plainly amused by something we said.

When we told him we were from the East Coast he responded, "It's Hee-la, not Gee-la."

Yes, it was the kindness of that stranger that saved me from mispronouncing not only the name of an


amazing reptile, but also the name of a national monument, a national forest and New Mexico's last wild and scenic river. And that was a very good thing as we spent an entire week exploring those very Gila (Hee-la) things.

CDT Sign!

We set up base camp on the Mesa Campground, in the Gila National Forest. For the first time in over five months we were in trees! Ponderosa pines, Mexican Blue Oaks and Juniper. It was open, high desert forest, but it was lovely. The Gila National Forest covers over 3.3 million acres, of mountains (over 6000 ft) in Southeastern New Mexico. The Gila Cliff Dwelling National Monument, Gila River and Gila Wilderness are all contained within the Forest.

The first day, in a new location is generally a scouting day. After setting up camp we drove North alongside the Gila River, to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. It's a long winding route but well worth the drive. The builders only lived in the cliffs for approximately 30 years but while there they took the time to make some really great little rooms and buildings. The Dwellings are located a little over half-way up the side of a narrow slot canyon off the Gila River. If location was as important then as it is today, I think a place on the River would have been preferable.

And in fact, that's probably where the cliff dwellers moved next. On the way home we stopped at some other roadside exhibits that explained riverside habitation.  

These days living along the Gila River is more difficult.  The Gila River is one of New Mexico's Wild and Scenic Rivers. New Mexico, in fact has five wild and scenic rivers. The fact that the state is also mostly desert and contains the lowest percentage of water held in lakes (all man-made) also means that all of those rivers are under constant pressure of being damned. Unbelievably the biggest motivation for damming seems to be recreation. The Gila is no exception. A number of folks and politicians seem to feel lakes are more fun that rivers. In my opinion they certainly are not fun, natural, wild or beautiful. There is a special beauty of extremes that comes from a river flowing through high canyon walls and desert.

Old Horse Corral

In the following days we took several hikes, not along the River, but into the Gila Wilderness.  The trails followed small streams into lovely, intimate canyons. One of those was on the CDT, or Continental Divide Trail.

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Starting out from the trailhead the path led North across the wide river valley before entering the narrow valley of the stream's outflow. After two miles of hiking along the meandering stream bed, checking out the many birds and exploring the the remains of a primitive horse corral, the canyon narrowed further. The stream now ran along the bottom of a narrow slot, the trail carved along the only dry(ish) land beside and above it. When the canyon narrowed so much that there wasn't room for the trail, the path turned north west and rose steeply out of the canyon. Within 400 yards we were up and climbing through high range again. Grasses, junipers, pinion pine and cactus doted the hillside.

At the peak, looking out over the Gila Forest, Wilderness and River I couldn't help but thank the stranger from the museum for helping me 'know' the area just a little bit better....and wonder if he ever went to Massachusetts if he'd be able to  correctly pronounce 'Gloucester', or 'Haverhill' for that matter.