A BRIGHT GREEN NEW MEXICO OASIS
BEAR CREEK IN JUNE: A BRIGHT GREEN OASIS IN A HIGH-DESERT LANDSCAPE WAITING FOR THE RAINS TO COME MAY AND JUNE: DRYING TIME IN THE HIGH DESERT SOUTHWEST It is late into the “waiting for the rain time” again here at Casitas de Gila Guesthouses on Bear Creek in Gila, New Mexico. It has been […]
FLUORITE MINING IN SOUTHWEST NEW MEXICO
SEARCHING FOR CRYSTALS AND HISTORY IN THE GILA FLUORITE DISTRICT OF SOUTHWEST NEW MEXICO THE GILA FLUORSPAR DISTRICT AND THE GILA FLUORSPAR MILL It was June of 1943 and the United States was now deep into its second year of involvement in World War II. All projections indicated that demand for fluorspar, an ore […]
SAN FRANCISCO HOT SPRINGS
A Day Hike to the San Francisco Hot Springs and the Pristine Wilderness of the San Francisco River Canyon The San Francisco River is the largest tributary to the Gila River. Over its 160-mile course, it flows through some of the most scenic country in Southeastern Arizona and Southwestern New Mexico. Emerging from its mountainous […]
OBSIDIAN
Forged by Fire • Treasured Through the Ages Among the wide range of volcanic rocks and minerals that can be found near Casitas de Gila Guesthouses, one of the most interesting is obsidian. In geologic terms, obsidian is classified as an extrusive igneous rock or sometimes a mineraloid, but never as a mineral because it […]
A GLORIOUS HIKE in the Middle Box of the Gila River to a 1,000-year-old Swimming Hole Carved in the Ash-Flow Tuffs of the Schoolhouse Mountain Caldera
Two week ago, two of our good friends from County Kerry, Ireland, spent a few days with us at Casitas de Gila Guesthouses while touring the American West. At the time, the lightening-caused Whitewater-Baldy fire had been burning for two weeks in the heart of the Gila Wilderness some 20 miles to the northwest […]
The Catwalk and Gold Dust Trails in Southwest New Mexico
A SPECTACULAR JOURNEY INTO THE 34-MILLION-YEAR-OLDMOGOLLON SUPERVOLCANO OF THE GILA WILDERNESS With his long-awaited discharge from the U.S. Army at Ft. Bayard in 1875, Sergeant James C. Cooney was at last free to pursue the exploration and development of a mineral vein he had discovered and claimed five years earlier while on patrol up what […]
THE SUPER-VOLCANOES OF THE GILA WILDERNESS
Thanks to the Discovery Channel, the National Geographic Channel, the BBC, and other mass media documentaries, most people have heard of super-volcanoes: large-scale geologic features, which when they become active, can spew 1,000 cubic kilometers (240 cubic miles) or more of ejected material in the form of lava, molten rock fragments and ash over vast […]
