I’m not too crazy about the snow and ice all winter in Santa Fe, so on Monday, Sept 21 I headed south in the Diesel Dodge to look for a winter home.  Might’s well make a sightseeing trip out of it, too, eh ??  After taking care of some business in ABQ (Albuquerque) I headed west to Grants, NM and took Hwy 117 south past El Malpais lava fields.  ( http://gogittum.com/blog/?cat=20 )  Very interesting scenery and I soon saw - I thought - a ruin back against a cliff.  Yup, a ruin it is, but I’m unsure just who built it.  This part looks to be in Very good shape, much better than most and windows and door are very square, so was it built later by settlers ??  Wonderful rock work if it was.  The back was demolished, more in line with what I expect from the older ruins, so maybe the Old Ones after all ?? ……………..

The ride down to the old town of Quemado was very nice, very scenic, the paved road a little rough and NO traffic.  Just an occasional car.  Dinner at the “Shakes, Steaks and Hot Cakes” restaurant in Quemado was a trip back in time.  A hamburger with 1/2 lb of burger, cheese, green chili, tomatoes, lettuce, purple onion and about 3″ thick, along with a bucket full of fries was just $7.95 - in this day and age.  I may have eaten 1/2 of it.  :-(  Maybe.

>From Quemado south was a very pleasant run on a very good road with no traffic and scattered small communities of small ranches and retirement homes.  I dunno about retiring here.  It’s very nice, very scenic, but very remote and a long, hard journey to major facilities.  Country is moderately mountainous, but not as rugged as that around Santa Fe.  Miles of off road trails.  Down Hwy 32 toward Apache Creek there were huge fields of flowers, apparently some kind of daisy and the late afternoon sun really lit them up.  Very pretty and High Tension Lar was already un-winding……………..

I spent Monday night boondocking (camping out with no utilities) at the little town of Reserve, NM, hidden in the trees beside the town baseball diamond.  It got down to 34° outside and in the morning was 42° in the camper.  Brrr.  The battery in the camper is very limited and I save it for the morning when I Really want the heat.  It’s lotsa fun jumping out into a freezing morning in my warmies to start the truck engine to give power to run the furnace………not.

Mostly lower mountains and valleys….kinda rough lower country and a nice drive all the way down from Grants to Silver City.  Here is a look at the area south of Reserve………….

Coming down Hwy 180, a look into the huge basin containing the little town of Alma, NM, out of sight here.  The road to the old mining district of Mogollon (pronounce it “muggy-own”) was closed due to major repair work, so I didn’t get up there this time, but my time will come…………..

A few miles south of Alma is the very nice little community of Glenwood.  5 miles up Whitewater Creek is the canyon where they built a town 130 years ago to process gold ore from up-canyon.  It’s a vertical canyon - almost a slot canyon so they went to a lot of work to build their necessary flumes and catwalks - and that’s what it’s called now - The Catwalk.  The trail starts right off getting serious…………….

Around the corner and up a bit it gets Real serious.  Those old-timers were amazing - they built all their stuff by hand.  Even with modern equipment this new catwalk must have been difficult to build.  I’d like to - and will - see this during the spring time floods……….

The trail was very rugged, very scenic and very well built……………..

Lots of waterfalls - really an idyllic place.  This is part of the Gila (HEE-lah) National Wilderness and there are 100’s of miles of trails in these mountains.  I climbed quietly and carefully down to the creek - very carefully watching for Rattlesnakes - and wasn’t surprised to see many trout in the clear water.  I didn’t see any of great size, but those’re smarter and shy-er……….I’m sure they’re there………………

You can see much evidence of the old timer’s efforts all along the way, as these timbers………….

……….and concrete supports.  A modern footbridge is behind them…………….

Who-ever built that footbridge didn’t worry too much about structure analysis - you could drive a tank across that thing…………..

Up near the end of the 1.1 mile hike was a suspension bridge; again a very rugged assembly…………..

For much of the way, the creek is buried under huge boulders.  I’d hate to be underneath when one of those comes down…………….

Then the end is kind of an anti-climax.  It just………ends.  Boom.  Go back a bit and a ford across the creek takes you on a Very rough trail back into the mountains, but the good trail just has a steel bar across it and - That’s All, Folks…………….

I spent last night in an extremely nice campground in Silver City, NM - one of the prettiest I’ve seen anywhere on my travels.  Here’s a quick look at a tiny piece of it……………

Last night, with the door open, I’ve already seen a dozen kinds of birds, and, of all things, a Jack Rabbit.  Didn’t expect him.  Silver City is pretty high - 6100 ft - and I’m told it gets fairly cold, with freezing nights from Nov. to March but almost no snow.  From what I’ve seen and heard so far, no thunderstorms either and man, am I getting sick of thunderstorms every day.   Cold I can live with……….snow I absolutely hate.

Silver City has a long Old West history, too, with Apache Chief Geronimo born about 40 miles north of here, Billy the Kid grew up here, Judge Roy Bean was here for a time, and so on and on and on.  The mining really got going in the 1870’s.  The back country is filled with stuff I like to do, scenery is great………..and season rate in this RV park is only $330.00 a month + electric.  Wifi is slow, but that can be lived with.  I think I’ve found my winter home.                            Lar.

Larry Bourne
Santa Fe, NM
www.gogittum.com
www.gogittum.com/blog

Posted: September 23rd, 2009 under 09 Santa Fe, 09-9-22 Scouting Trip.
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