As modern living grows tenser in multiple ways, and as the Southwestern summer moves in for a chokehold, the reaction of a reasonable person is to head for higher ground. In June of 2020, the COVID pandemic, specifically, was testing our faith and fortitude as never before, and we realized there could be no remedy more effective than a pilgrimage to the uplands of the Gila, the primordial lifeline of our southern Arizona home.
After 30 years of spontaneous visits to a patchwork of locations around the region, I hadn’t thought much beyond the state boundary with New Mexico, which lies outside of most examinations of the Sonoran Desert. Probably what finally moved the Gila headwaters onto my radar was stumbling upon the sweeping, poetic study by Gregory McNamee, Gila: Life and Death of an American River, dating back to the early ‘90s.
And my coincidental recent encounter with that venerable character no doubt cliched my resolve. I was able to talk him into speaking to my group of college honors students – who subsequently created an affectionate Wikibook tribute to the bioregion titled Sustainability and Sense of Place in the Sonoran Desert – and I could no longer delay my journey to the world’s first designated wilderness area.
Forests on fire
The previous three months had been an exercise in increasing isolation from other people, and the last week had been an especially stressful meditation on how to continue delivering meaningful education during a pandemic that, largely due to political absurdity and personal irrationality, was exploding around us. Adding to our despondency, nature was burning.
Wildfires were raging around the state, including the heart of the Santa Catalina Mountains. Driving into Tucson after dark, we followed the long glowing line that stretched along the face of the range. The next day, as we loaded our gear and supplies, we looked up periodically to watch smoke billow from the leading edge of the inferno as it made its way across Ventana Canyon.
On the eastward drive across the state in our borrowed rig, a modern SUV and pop-up trailer, we made one social stop in Dragoon. Our friends, who’ve settled on 10 acres there, thought they’d had their bout with the ‘Rona way back in October – months before it had been acknowledged as a problem in this country. During the brief visit, complete with face coverings, we were informed that more fires were popping up in the direction where we were heading.
Fresh air – briefly
New Mexico Route 90 angles away from I-10 at Lordsburg – which, if its esteemed inhabitants can forgive me for saying so, seems an appellation a bit grandiose in relation to its reality. In the slanting Saturday evening sunlight, not a creature was stirring, to borrow a passage out of context; I was hard pressed, in fact, to spot a living specimen of the plant kingdom.
From there, the highway steadily gains elevation into rolling chaparral of pinon and juniper, finally descending into Silver City, flanked by the pale scars of massive mining operations. As foretold, the forested ridges in the background were faint beneath a blanket of smoke.
Since we were losing the sun, we headed straight through town and into the hills. But, just beyond the hamlet of Pinos Altos, at the boundary of the national forest, a sign confirmed that the road was closed due to the fire. So we turned around and settled for a modest privately owned campground that boasted of its location squarely on the Continental Divide.
The proprietress was consistently hard to get ahold of, responding slowly each time to the buzzer outside her office. Maybe she wanted to keep her distance from the clientele, some of whom had a practice of gunning their dirt-bike engines well after sundown. She even seemed suspicious of the fresh neon highlighting in Lori’s hair.
Evolving plans
The night was very pleasant at 7,000 feet, the starry sky glorious. However, in the morning we did not linger to make breakfast because the wind had shifted and brought an oppressive pall of smoke down the mountain. Since we are adamant about patronizing local restaurants, preferably in quaint old buildings, we sought out the historic downtown, which was so quiet as to almost appear closed down.
We did find a sweet little Mexican restaurant, though, with a young server whose disposition glowed brightly through her face mask. Tapping into the wi-fi account for the next business over, we checked on the world for the last time of the trip, and we caught up on our research of the explorations ahead of us.
Available information was contradictory concerning what roads and what campgrounds were open, so we had to depend on our own senses and our own common sense. Our plan for primitive camping was sketchy since the hills to the north were smokier than ever, and sites are scarce around the upper forks of the river even under normal circumstances.
Finally, since we didn’t want to bivouac in the interior more than one night anyway, we decided we would park the trailer at the local KOA and just make a day trip of it. As it turned out, we would have found a place to camp, but the road was long, narrow and winding. Anyway, shouldn’t there be a limit to dragging our lodgings with us wherever we go?
The new and the old
The long way around into the wilderness follows state Route 152 to San Lorenzo, which skirts the oldest operating mine in the U.S., the vast open-pit Santa Rita High. On the hill above is a quaint geological feature, the Keeling Nun, who prays to the altar of a massive rock wall. Over the years, the figure has been gradually crumbling – quaking in awe of the spectacle below, or perhaps in horror, depending on your source of local lore.
After turning onto the more rural Route 35, the traveler passes through Mimbres, the scene of a famous archeological excavation in the late ‘20s, now a Cultural Heritage Site. We stopped in at the compound of historic buildings on the way out, but they were closed due to the pandemic, like pretty much every place else.
More than 1,000 years ago, Mogollon Indians had built an adobe pueblo on top of an even older pit-house village. No relevant trace can be observed beneath the tangle of parched grass; but, from the illustrations posted around the site, this was a sustainable, communal lifestyle the likes of which the human species, if it really wants to continue, will soon need to recapture.
In search of the headwaters
At Terry Canyon, the road turns down Sapillo Creek, along which apparently lies ample affordable real estate with a lovely view of the hills, the woods and the sky. For miles, mobile homes or doublewides, perhaps someone’s dream hunting lodge or retirement spot, dot the valley among patches of farmland. Farther along, past Camp Thunderbird, sit some higher-end estates, with hacienda-style houses and stately horse stables.
At Lake Roberts, the creek is dammed for a scenic recreation area, where a few die-hard fishermen bobbed in their boats far below the road, though the vista point and picnic areas were closed.
Where Copperas Creek comes in, the route ascends sharply up toward Buck Hannen Mountain, where a roadside overlook offers a spectacular view to the north and west – across the streambed, with its lush fringe of cottonwoods, to Granite Peak and Brushy Mountain, the latter of which was in the process of losing its piney mane to yet another wildfire. An informational marker, pocked by handgun vandalism, shows an artist’s rendering of what the nearby woods will look like if inappropriate fire-suppressing measures are continued. Not surprisingly, they look just like that.
In the valley far below, at Gila Hot Springs, the West and Middle forks of the river, having joined a few miles above, meet the East Fork. From here, the Gila River, now without need of qualifiers, begins to wind its way out of the mountains toward Silver City.
The only sign of activity in Gila Hot Springs is at the curio store whose claim to fame is its homemade ice cream. Signs on the door insist upon masks and social distancing, by order of the Governor of New Mexico. Another sign demands that patrons keep their clothes on in the parking lot. Evidently, bathers in the nearby medicinal waters have no place else to change.
Sign of things to come
The payoff of the trip deep into the Gila Wilderness is, of course, the unique natural beauty of its rolling mountains and protected forests. Add to that the wondrous idea of the life-sustaining element that emanates from this place, tumbling across the scorching plains, following the arc of the sun to mingle with the sea. Or at least formerly.
Certainly, an added highlight is a visit to the Cliff Dwellings National Monument, high on the West Fork. Predictably, the Visitor Center at the confluence of the West and Middle forks was closed, but there was in fact a small crew of junior rangers greeting people at the Monument office, pointing out the pump with its sparking well water and admonishing hikers not to touch anything up at the ruins.
The loop trail, up a hundred-odd steps and through a series of overhangs, is 80 percent original, they said. The yawning caves certainly do seem to be an ideal place to retreat to in the face of a threat. It turns out, though, that their inhabitants used them for only about a generation and then abandoned them. It could have been that no one ever attacked them. Alternatively, they might have simply had to migrate, the 14th Century being a period of swift climate change in the Southwest. Not nearly as extreme as the human-caused, global one we’re living through now, of course.
Sonoran Visions 