We climbed steps, ladders, bridges and trails, and...

...I’m beginning to feel like a mountain goat after this weekend’s excursions, albeit a very sore and tired one. With our nephew Dave visiting for a few days, and Dave claiming to be “nature starved,” we took two all-day trips plus an afternoon’s meander through the woods.

On Saturday, we went up into the heart of the Gila Nat’l Forest to the Gila Cliff Dwellings; Sunday, to White Water canyon, also known as the Catwalk and today, a long “walk” on the Continental Divide Trail, or CDT.

The Gila Cliff Dwellings are located 25 miles from Silver City up into the Gila Nat’l Forest. That 25 miles took about 2 hours to drive. The road was narrow, winding, and without shoulders or guard rails much of the way. But the scenery was incredible. We crested ridges up to 8,000 feet in elevation, and dropped down into lovely valleys. The road took us through ponderosa pine forests and arid hillsides. If this sounds familiar, it’s because we drove part of this road a couple of weeks ago.

We reached the Gila Cliff Dwelling Visitor Center just before lunch, spent a few minutes there, bought some books, and then ate lunch at the Lower Scorpion Campground. Drove the final mile up to the base of the cliffs in which caves the dwellings had been built. We started up the trail to the dwellings, up a canyon with a running stream; this is the headwaters of the west branch of the Gila River, birthplace of Geronimo.

Then we began to climb up the canyon side. And climb. And stop for breath. And climb. And stop to gasp for breath. And climb the last few steps to the caves. The dwellings were wonderful although in fact, the most recent research suggests that the site was not used as full-time dwellings, but possibly as a ceremonial center. There were a few pictographs and in a presumed storage area, some very old corn cobs.

The energy power still clinging to the walls and rooms was palpable to me. It was amazing to learn that these dwellings were built and used for the span of a single generation and then abandoned. We climbed from the last cave down a traditional kiva ladder and then followed the steep path back down the side of the cliff to the base. After leaving the site of the dwellings, we went back to Lower Scorpion campground and walked a few hundred yards up a trail to a wall of pictographs; there were so many of varying degrees of sophistication and skill that I speculated that this must be the Mimbrenos' Facebook or MySpace -- it certainly looked like Wall-to-Wall postings.

There was also a small two-room dwelling built in a cave up a short canyon from the campground. It very much looked to be the same age as those we'd just visited up on the cliffs.

On the way home, we stopped at WalMart to pick up wine and dinner fixin’s – certainly a contrast to the effort and energy that would have been required to grow and stock those little ears of corn during the living years at the cliff dwellings.

White Water Canyon is a slot canyon with the man-made feature called the Catwalk. During the mining years, miners hung a pipe down the canyon to carry water; because the canyon was so narrow with no ground on which to lay the pipe, the pipe was suspended from the walls of the canyon and the workers had to walk the pipe like a cat walks a wall – thus the canyon became known as the Catwalk. The CCC removed the pipe and replaced it with a suspended wooden walkway and that was in turn replaced by the Forest Service in the 80s? 90s? with a metal walkway.

The catwalk does not go all the way up the canyon, but only through the slot section. Above that, the canyon widens and the trail continues up, hewn out of the canyon wall first on one side and then the other. There are several bridges that cross the chasm along the way to the top. The canyon is full of enormous boulders and slabs of rock that split and fell from the canyon walls into the creek bed. The boulders and slabs have been moved, perched and piled by the water, shaped and sculpted, softened and rounded until the canyon is like a giant sculpture park.

The last bridge to cross is a suspension bridge which sways and undulates as you walk across it. Instead of reaching a pinnacle with a grand view of the canyon or surrounding land, the trail comes to an end under the overhang of the canyon wall where there’s no room to go further. Nick and I had been to the Catwalk back in September on our last trip, but I was not able to quite make it up to the end. Of the 1.2 mile length, I expect I made it almost a mile. Yesterday, I made the top without strain. For that, I thank all of you who supported me to quit smoking. 42 years of puffing – and puffing to walk – and one year three months 2 weeks (roughly) of not smoking – I’m very proud of my increasing ability to move easily on this terrain at this altitude.

Anyway, we made our way back down past some guy trying to handle 3 active young 40 lb dogs on leash, coming up the narrow walk. The dogs jumped up on me and knocked me back a step, but fortunately I wasn’t near the edge, this stretch of edge had a railing and Nick was right behind me. I wasn’t too thrilled with the owner though, and even less thrilled – nay, downright pissed off – to get a few feet further down the trail and find the mess left in the middle of the trail by one of the dogs. In truth, it wasn’t the dog that left the mess – it was the inconsiderate owner who left the mess, when he or the woman with him could easily have taken some handy rock or stick and pushed the poop off the trail. We did that, instead. Then not much further on, we found another form of poop (since I’m being polite here) – an empty beer can left, we assumed, by the young, loud couple who had passed us going up as we came down. The can had not been there when we ascended, so we knew someone had been along recently and dropped it on the ground, again in the middle of the walk; and we had seen him carrying a white bag of something. The can, we also packed out.

Today, we took Dave to lunch in town and gave him a look at Silver City’s historic district, which is where its real character presents. He’s been here since Thursday, but since we headed out of town each day before today, he had not seen civilization as we know it. And today’s civilization sample was skewed toward the grungy and the straggly, hanging on the sidewalk around the Buffalo Bar or the Javalina coffee shop; everyone else was working or not in town. Most of the galleries and shops are closed on Monday so there was also a dearth of tourists to balance the street guys.

After a 30 minute tour which took in a walk up and down the main drag and a drive around the University, we headed up to the Continental Divide Trail (CDT). We enjoyed a very pleasant, less strenuous walk, although the CDT is not without its little ups and downs. Nutmeg was along today, much to her pleasure, since we left her home Saturday and Sunday.

I cannot close without telling you about seeing the Superbowl. It didn’t really occur to us (Nick and I) to worry about watching The Game since we both have been weaned from weekend football for years. But Dave wanted to see how Pittsburg would fare; he considers the Steelers his hometown team, having gone to school at Carnegie-Mellon. So the great search for a venue began. We do have a TV, but it’s analog and only gets one channel, and that one not well. Yes, I have our coupon for a converter box, but no, we haven’t gotten around to trading the coupon for the box; we are still on the prehistoric side of the great digital divide. We talked about the local options – or lack of them. Dave went so far as to post on Facebook his dilemma – how to watch The Game in a household without TV.

He got a couple of responses he shared: (1) find a Circuit City and watch there; (2) find a sports bar, now! Someone might have missed the fact that Circuit City has gone out of business, but we did briefly discuss the possibility of watching at WalMart. Dave thought perhaps if he bought a six-pack of beer in groceries, and a folding chair in home furnishings, and wandered over to the electronics department…but was dissuaded fairly easily. I thought that the Buffalo Bar would probably broadcast The Game, but wasn’t too thrilled with the character of the venue. Then I remembered that is a new brew pub in town, which seemed a natural. I called – they were closed for the day!!!

Finally, in desperation, I checked to see what channel The Game was to be broadcast on and found that by the grace of Howard Cosell and Sonny Jergensen, it was broadcast on the only station we can receive – NBC. So I wired up the rabbit ears and lo and behold – a snowy but viewable image. Maybe they couldn’t see the ball go through the air for the snow, but they could tell the difference between the Steelers and the Cardinals and that seemed enough. Dave was pleased and Nick pulled up a chair; he (Nick) very soon was shouting at the TV, jumping up and down, waving his arms at real and perceived great plays and infractions. It must be genetic. How does someone transition from not seeing a football game in years to raving like a rabid fan, when 24 hours ago he wasn’t sure who was playing let alone had a reason to root for a choice of teams.

Ah well, I tuned in for the final half of the final quarter. It was an exciting 5 minutes! And the tv hasn't been turned on since!
Love, Sonnie