After a brief visit to Silver City, we headed north on Route 15, through the Gila (pronounced Heela) National Forest and to Gila Cliff Dwellings.
Tour books recommend that vehicles pulling trailers longer than 20 feet to use a different route. Route 15 is only 44 miles but takes a good 2 hours to get to the Cliff Dwellings. We enjoyed the ride through the national forest.
We found this rest area to stop and have lunch. You can see the beautiful mountain view.
More questions than answers surround the story of people who built structures in natural caves of Cliff Dweller Canyon. Archeological evidence suggests that many different groups of people have inhabited this area over thousands of years. The people who built the cliff dwellings were part of the Mogollon culture.
Another famous group of people who occupied the area were the Apache Indians who migrated to the upper Gila river about 1500. Legendary leader Geronimo was born near the Gila river headwaters in the early 1820s as Mexico challenged Apache control of the area. This monument to Geronimo says "I was born by the headwaters of the Gila. Geronimo, Chiricahua Apache Chief. 1829-1909".
The Mogollon found abundant game and fertile soil in the Gila River valley for both native vegetation and their crops of corn, beans, and squash. Breaking the tradition, the Tularosa Mogollon build inside the caves of Cliff Dweller Canyon with rock, mortar, and timbers from trees cut between 1276 and 1287. But by 1300 the Gila Cliff Dwellers had moved on. These caves were much larger than the ones at Bandelier.
Approximately 40 rooms were built inside several natural caves in Cliff Dweller Canyon. This picture was taken from inside one of the caves-what a view of this rugged, wild area.
I spotted this cactus in bloom along the trail. The leaf was about 12 inches long.
Here's a look at the cliff dwellings from across the valley. They faced south to capture the heat in the winter when the sun was lower in the sky and were kept cooler in the summer when the sun was higher and didn't shine directly into the openings.
We took a different route back to the campground and found this wonderful view out across the mountains.
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