Part Eighty Six

     January 2nd - 6th                    Gila NF, NM                                      (Go to Pt 1)

​​I continued splashing down the river until the canyon finally grew dark and there was no longer any choice but to set-up camp near the water.  I was fairly certain it wouldn’t rain during the night but being trapped at the bottom of this dark, narrow canyon gave me the creeps.  Maybe I wasn’t cut-out for canyoneering.

Considering my waterlogged boots, I’d already been through one episode of frozen footwear and wasn’t keen to repeat the experience, so this time I put my wet boots and socks in a stuff sack and pushed that to the bottom of my sleeping bag.  The inevitable dampness inside my bag was a virus sure to infect the down insulation, but frozen boots and socks were no fun either.

​Radio wasn’t picking-up anything down in the canyon but that was okay, the sound of the river just beyond my tent was actually relaxing, and the oppressiveness of the canyon walls eventually faded into the blackness of night.

In the morning I could see my first river crossing while still in the tent and temperatures were in the low twenty’s; pretty frosty weather for playing in the river.  The foot of my sleeping bag was damp from sheltering wet boots, and putting-on my wet socks was again cringe worthy but not as bad as the iced-over wool I’d stuck my feet into yesterday.

After getting-up, I had lit the stove inside the tent to warm things up a bit, putting on a pot of water to heat while I packed.  Then, in the midst of stuffing my sleeping bag I knocked over the pot, spilling water all across the tent floor. I shrieked and flew into a frenzy, throwing crap out of the tent at the speed of light.

My sleeping pad got the worst of it but the hood of my down bag had also gotten soaked, and that was pretty unforgivable.  What a careless, boneheaded thing to do since there was no reason to be cooking inside the tent to begin with.  I had plenty of out-loud words to say about this mess as I drained water from the tent and did what I could wring-out the rest.

From my spiltwater camp, the day started with no let-up to stream crossings and I probably forded the river 10 to 15 times in just the opening mile, which got me to wondering, how many miles was I actually walking to achieve one, straight, linear mile?  The loops and coils of the canyon probably snaked three miles to gain one, linear mile, and the crisscrossing back and forth from one side of the river to the other was also costing me extra miles. On the 250 map, the canyon appeared to be roughly 20, linear miles long, so yeah, maybe 60 to 70 miles of walking to get 20 miles closer to  Mexico.

​Water levels in the river had been rising incrementally since yesterday as I continued to pass more spring-fed tributaries.  When the current hadn’t been over the top of my boots the going wasn’t too bad but now the water level was over my boot tops and that drug my feet down with water weight and resistance.

Little changed over the course of the morning until close to noon when the canyon walls finally relaxed their grip some and things began to open up again.  Not long after my lunch break, I was plodding across the river when I suddenly felt warm water in my boots coming from a tributary.  Ooo… a hot spring!  I dropped my pack to investigate and just up the hill I found an awesome pool of hot water. Well, hot dang, stick a fork in it, baby, my day was done.

I found a perfect campsite just up from the hot spring pool, pitched-up my tent, and spent the rest of the afternoon soaking in my own, private, hot tub.  And it was awesome!  The canyon was no longer a sinister place to be and all of its original enchantment returned.

​Above, soaring pinnacles from the canyon’s rim pierced a lazy, blue sky, and around the hot spring, everything flourished.  I imagined the Gila River Canyon as being over-the-top spectacular in springtime, but even now, during this dead time of year, the variety of trees, bushes, and vegetation were still intriguing.

Gnarled oak and pinyon trees grew where they could across the rocky cliffs, and manzanita in spots that caught enough sun.  All across the soaring canyon walls, life sprouted from the most unlikely of places and the hot spring was an oasis of luxury where I could relax and take it all in.

I ended up spending nearly five hours in the spring and returned to my camp squeaky clean, ready to eat.  Radio was still incommunicado, so I prepared my meal in the quiet of the evening, wondering exactly where I was in the canyon but fairly certain the end had to be near.

I left my hot spring camp early the next morning and not long afterward the canyon bottom widened to let the river meander through open meadows once again while the canyon walls diminished until they were nothing more than rolling hills bordering the valley.
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I reached the Gila Wilderness Visitor’s Center early afternoon then humped it down the road a short piece to make camp at Forks Campground.  This was after the New Year and there were very few people at the campground, but just the fact that there were any people at all made me feel a bit self-conscious, what with them lounging outside of their Winnebago, eyeballing this hippie and his pup tent.

Rummaging through the last of my food supplies that evening, I could see I didn’t have enough to make it through the reaming four days of hiking down to Silver City, which was a real bummer. This meant I was going to have to hitch-hike into town, buy four days’ worth of groceries, then hitch-hike back to where I was.  My hope was to flip this grocery run around in one day but it ended-up taking two.

Click on the map for a larger image

The next morning, sparse traffic leaving the Gila River Canyon resulted in my spending hours by the side of the road waiting for a ride, such that, by the time I finally got to a market in Silver City, it was mid-afternoon.  At the grocery store, I got to talking with a couple of guys who looked to be about my age and it turned out they had just moved to Silver City from St. Louis and, surprise, our respective high schools had competed against each other in sports. When I told them what I was doing in Silver City, trying to finish my walk to Mexico, they insisted I stay over and hang-out with them, which I did.

My new friends, Mel and Jesse, had already been thinking about a visit to the Gila Cliff Dwellings, so they were happy to drive me back up to the Gila River in the morning to resume my trek, dropping me at the confluence of the east and west forks. The west fork canyon was the canyon I had just come down and the east fork canyon was next.
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Naturally, I was starting the day in a dry pair of socks and boots that did not stay that way for very long.  Near the confluence, the stream ran wide, without enough rocks to hops, pushing me into the river then leaking water over my boot tops - picking-up right where I’d left off.

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Go to Part 87

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The CDTC was founded in 2012 by volunteers and recreationists hoping to provide a unified voice for the CDT. Working hand-in-hand with the U.S. Forest Service and other federal land management agencies, the CDTC is a non-profit partner supporting stewardship of the CDT. The mission of the CDTC is to complete, promote and protect the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, a world-class national resource. For more information, please visit continentaldividetrail.org.

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