Gila Wilderness Adventure

It’s a good day when you can pack up the pets and head to the Gila for a weekend of savoring the fall colors, the nip of a crisp morning, the warmth of campfires, and long hikes down Little Bear Canyon. Even better when you can string a few of those days together and take our recently renovated 1972 Airstream along. After months of hot, dry summers we’re ready to trade the desert heat for chilly mountain mornings and some room to roam.

Our favorite boondocking spot, in what we call the Elk Meadow, is one of those places we’re always happy to come back to. Our first time camping here we were woken to the bugle of an elk herd as they moved towards water. One of those haunting sounds and incredible sights I’ll never forget. We tuck the Airstream between the towering pines and let the weekend take shape. There’s no ambitious itinerary. Mostly, we’re here to walk until our legs are tired, marvel at the expansiveness of nature, stargaze, and listen to sandhill cranes coo themselves to sleep.

I love waking up to mornings with enough bite that you want to stay tucked under the blankets. The tiny wood stove I installed in the Airstream is for mornings just like these. There’s nothing cozier than building a little roaring fire and sitting in front of it with a steaming cup of coffee as the sun rises.

Just in case you’re wondering where this place is I keep yammering about, here is a little map that show you the exact location of the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico. It’s incredibly remote and takes about 5.5hrs from Albuquerque or 3ish from Las Cruces. And even when you touch the edge of it, you still likely hours from where you’re hike starts. To get to it, you either have to drive through the flat desert and through Silver City or via NM152 (My favorite) and through the Black Range Mountains, a road blessed (in my opinion 🙂 with switchbacks and curves that hug the stony cliff and drop off on the other side of the road. As youngin’s my siblings and I would test how fast we could take the turns and drive the road not hit another vehicle or fall off the mountain face. I’m sure everyone else was not our biggest fans.

The Gila is 3.3 million acres with the majority of it undeveloped and without roads. It’s rugged in a way you never find back east and, in part, its why I love it so much. I have raved to friends about the wonders of the Gila only to have them come out and not have much fun. It’s often not what people expect, often a bit too rugged with zero cell phone signal requiring you to be comfortable in finding your way both in the car and on hikes the old school methods – maps and compasses. To many this feel scary, to me this feels like freedom.

One of our favorite ways to spend the day is hiking down Little Bear Canyon to the Middle Fork of the Gila River. The trail takes you across an expansive grassy meadow and up onto the mesa before slipping down the other side to follow a creek. It winds through forests and meadows until the canyon walls begin to engulf you and towering cliffs soar overhead. We follow rivulets of water along the creek bed, with gorgeous, flickering light shining through the oak leaves. Gradually, the high walls cast us into shadow, and the air cools as we climb over logjams and skirt around waterfalls.

Finally, we emerge where the creek meets the Middle Fork of the Gila River, onto a stretch of land with a grove of oaks and cottonwoods. The walls above the river are epic. Huge, rugged faces of rock rise overhead, and you keep tipping your head farther back, trying to take them all in. From down along the water, their scale is hard to capture in a photograph. I try anyway. Then stand there a little longer. The river moves beneath them, the light shifts across the rock, and it’s a pretty spectacular place to feel very small.

By the time we hike back, we’re ready for food, warm layers, and a seat by the fire. The dogs settle in after a full day of exploring, and we linger outside as the meadow gets dark. There’s something deeply satisfying about tired legs, a warm fire, and knowing your bed is just a few steps away. A few days of boondocking still feel awfully luxurious with the Airstream waiting for us.