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1-877-923-4827 info@casitasdegila.com Southwestern Guesthouses on 260 Acres |
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Hiking Near Casitas de Gila (within 20 miles)
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Hiking Opportunities in Southwest New Mexico … Guests interested in Hiking will find Hiking on Casita Lands …
One trail that is popular with all of our guests is our Self-Guided Nature Trail. This 0.6 mile loop trail winds its way across the slopes in front of the Casitas and then along the Bear Creek floodplain below. A detailed trail guide, provided in each Casita, will introduce you to the natural and human history of this special part of Southwest New Mexico by means of numbered markers at selected stops along the trail. In addition to identifying and providing interesting information about the plants, shrubs, trees, rocks, and rock formations encountered on the trail, the trail guide offers insight into the local geologic history, geomorphology, Native American history and pioneer ranching heritage.
Across and beyond the creek, challenging and steeper trails await the more adventurous hiker. One interesting trail, a favorite with rock and mineral collectors, leads up a dry wash side canyon lined with colorful cliffs of Gila Conglomerate. Another trail, strictly for the physically fit, climbs abruptly some 800 feet in about a mile to provide an eagle’s eye view of the whole Gila Valley, the Piños Altos and Mogollon mountains, the Gila Wilderness, the Blue Mountain Wilderness, the Burro Mountains, and beyond into Arizona.
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Day Hikes in the Gila National Forest The Gila National Forest, with its enclosed Gila Wilderness area and Aldo Leopold Wilderness area, offers over 2,500 miles of unlimited trail hiking opportunities ranging from easy, low-gradient walks along the Gila River to strenuous hikes across alpine peaks and ridges for experienced outdoor enthusiasts. This is true wilderness hiking, offering outstanding natural beauty, vegetation, and wildlife. With the exception of a few trails around the more popular visitor destinations (such as the Catwalk or Gila Cliff Dwellings) most of the trails are unimproved and little traveled. It is highly recommended that if you are thinking about doing serious hiking in the more remote areas of the Gila, you do some planning and investigation before you arrive in Southwest New Mexico. Becky and Michael will, of course, be more than happy to share their local knowledge and information, as well as answer your questions regarding hiking in the area. One good guidebook that we can recommend is Hiking New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness by Bill Cunningham and Polly Burk, published by Falcon Publishing (1999). There’s a copy of this book in each of our Casitas, and it's for sale in our Art Gallery as well. The western portion of the Gila Wilderness (which lies east of US 180 between Cliff/Gila and Glenwood) contains the highest mountains, most rugged terrain, and least traveled trails. There are numerous trailheads in the area that provide good access into this fascinating part of the Gila Wilderness and adjacent Gila National Forest. You will find more information on hiking and other activities in the Gila National Forest on their website. Below we've listed and described a few of the more popular hikes that are located near Casitas de Gila Guesthouses. Hiking Near Casitas de Gila (within 20 miles)
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| Becky & Michael O'Connor, Owners CASITAS DE GILA GUESTHOUSES & ART GALLERY 50 Casita Flats Rd • PO Box 325 • Gila, New Mexico 88038 575-535-4455 • fax 575-535-4456 1-877-923-4827 • info@casitasdegila.com |
HOME | THE 5 CASITAS | RATES & POLICIES | LOCATION | NEWS | THINGS TO DO | ART GALLERY | ABOUT US |
UPDATED JUNE 2010 COPYRIGHT ©2010 CASITAS DE GILA, INC. |
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We have 260 acres of unspoiled high desert terrain that comprise the Casitas de Gila Nature Preserve. At present the Preserve is accessed by 10 different trails offering some 6 miles of hiking and walking through diverse, natural landscapes ranging in elevation from 4,700 feet to 5,500 feet. The trails vary from short, easy hikes right out the door of your Casita to longer, more difficult hikes into the hills and mountains beyond. Download our 
Several additional trails are designed to highlight other fascinating aspects of the Bear Creek Riparian area that extends for 3/4 of a mile through the middle of the Casita lands. Over the millennia this unassuming little creek, which normally babbles along quietly year-round about a hundred feet below the Casitas, has cut deeply into this desert upland to produce a spectacular cliff-lined canyon, heavily vegetated with groves of cottonwood, sycamore, willow, walnut, and gray oak. Several of the cottonwood and sycamore are very large and ancient, measuring up to 25 feet in girth and several hundreds of years in age.
Behind and immediately adjacent to the Casitas there are easy to moderately difficult trails across the juniper, pinon, mesquite, catclaw, and cactus covered flats and hills along the road leading into the Casitas. One easy trail leads up to a nice picnic spot that overlooks Bear Creek Canyon, Turtle Rock, and the multi-colored lava flows and ash falls which make up the steep-walled escarpment of the Piños Altos Range in the Gila Wilderness just five miles away to the north.
Each Casita has is a nature library with various books, guidebooks, and information about hiking in general and the major hiking trails in the area. Your hosts, Becky and Michael, are also quite knowledgeable about hiking in the area and will be glad to direct you and provide detailed topographic maps for specific trails and nearby areas when you are ready to venture away from the Casitas. Additional maps and information about selected trails in the Gila National Forest and Wilderness areas are available from the very friendly folks at the Glenwood Ranger Station.
Caps and whimsical, hand-carved walking sticks, plus books and maps detailing hikes and hiking in the area, are available for purchase in our Art Gallery. Walkie-talkies are provided for guests who are walking alone on the Casita lands.
Ten miles east of Casitas de Gila Guesthouses the Gila River re-enters the Gila National Forest as it begins to transect the ancient Burro Mountains. This is the Middle Box of the Gila, located off US 180 on Bill Evans Lake Road and then continuing on FR 809. Although there are no official, maintained trails in the area, the Middle Box provides extensive easy to moderate, off-trail day hiking opportunities along the river in scenic old-growth riparian forest and adjacent side canyons.
Five miles from Casitas de Gila Guesthouses, NM153 becomes FR155 at the boundary of the Gila National Forest. Usually requiring a higher clearance vehicle (but not four-wheel drive) FR155 continues about 6 miles into the Gila National Forest and then dead ends at the Gila River. From this trailhead, FT724 leads upstream some 35 miles almost to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. FT724 provides the hiker with unlimited access to the inner canyons of the Gila Wilderness. A rewarding easy to moderate day hike of about 8 miles round-trip in and out along this trail will lead you into the Gila Wilderness through outstanding old-growth cottonwood-sycamore riparian forest along the Gila River, below towering volcanic cliffs, to riverside rock alcoves used by pre-historic Native American cultures. 
About 15 and 20 miles respectively from Casitas de Gila Guesthouses, the Mogollon Creek and Rain Creek trails offer entry into some of the most rugged portions of the Gila Wilderness. Both of these trails are accessed from Sacaton Road/FR 147 loop road which runs north from NM 293 in Cliff to intersect US 180 about 5 miles south of the community of Pleasanton. The first 2 miles of these trails offers a fairly easy half-day introductory Wilderness hike with good vistas of rugged canyons and terrain within the Gila Wilderness. Beyond the first 2 miles, both of these trails become steep, rocky and physically challenging.
Alma is a small community about 6 miles north of the town of Glenwood on US 180, and some 36 miles north of Casitas de Gila Guesthouses. From "downtown" Alma, county-maintained Mineral Creek Road extends about 6 miles east into the Gila National Forest (FR701) to dead-end at the Mineral Creek Trailhead (FT201). We think that the Mineral Creek Trail is one of the most spectacular, easily-accessible half-day hikes in Southern New Mexico. The trail closely follows the creek bed of Mineral Creek canyon, a magnificent narrow gorge lined with shear, 1000 to 1500 foot towering cliffs of yellow, orange, pink, red, white, and dark-colored volcanic lava and ash flows. The trail ranges from easy to moderate difficulty, depending upon the amount of water flowing in the creek.
Mineral Creek takes its name from the extensive mining that took place here beginning in the 1870s when Captain James Cooney mustered out of the U.S. Army and began mining gold from veins he had discovered while chasing Apaches just after the Civil War. Cooney's discovery brought others, and soon the bustling mining camp of Cooney had grown to several hundred souls seeking their fortune about a mile and a half up the canyon from today's trailhead.
Mining flourished in Cooney after Geronimo's surrender in 1886, but the camp's days were soon drawing to a close for other reasons. Around the time of Cooney's death, even richer veins of gold and silver were being discovered along Silver Creek, just over the ridge to the south, leading to the development of the rip-roaring mining town of Mogollon and the eventual abandonment of the Cooney Camp after a series of devastating floods on Mineral Creek around the turn of the century.
The Catwalk National Recreation Area offers all levels of hikers an excellent half to full day outing in the spectacular Mogollon Mountains. Located about 35 miles north of Casitas de Gila Guesthouses, the site is reached by taking US 180 north to the gown of Glenwood, and then turning right onto NM174 for 6 miles to its end in the Gila National Forest.
Whitewater Creek canyon is similar to the Mineral Creek canyon in that the canyon walls rise sheer and precipitously many hundreds of feet upward through complex layers of colorful volcanic rocks.
With the discovery of even richer veins of ore on Silver Creek in the late 1800s, just over the ridge south of Cooney Camp on Mineral Creek (see Mineral Creek Trail FT201 above) one of the West's wildest and richest mining towns was born. In its heyday Mogollon boasted a population of some 3,000 to 6,000 souls and, because of its isolation, was truly one of the wildest, shoot-'em-up mining towns in the West. Mining continued up to the 1950s and resumed for a short time in the 1970s before coming to a halt.
The hike up Graveyard Gulch is truly a time-warp hike. After passing a few buildings and evidence of modern civilization at the start of the hike, you are quickly transported into another era as you pass by old mine workings, tumbled-down miner's shacks and assorted decaying artifacts of human toil and struggle. After climbing a half a mile or so, a view back to the south down the canyon gives a good perspective of how Mogollon appeared in its former glory days. Towards the end of the hike the road becomes steeper and quite rocky before reaching a flat area covered with sparse trees and vegetation and red soil surrounding the overgrown fenced graveyard.
The Whitewater Baldy and Crest Trail is a full-day, moderately difficult, 12-mile round trip hike through some of the highest portions of the Mogollon Range, including an ascent of Whitewater Baldy, the highest peak in the Gila Wilderness at 10,895 feet. This Gila Wilderness trail is for the more experienced and well-seasoned hiker who wants to savor the high country, yet be able to reflect on it while sitting in the hot tub at Casitas de Gila Guesthouses at the end of the day!
From Mogollon on, Bursum Road becomes an improved gravel/dirt road that is followed another 9 miles to the Sandy Point Trailhead at 9,132 feet. At the Sandy Point parking area two trails beckon. Heading north, FT202 heads down into Mineral Creek Canyon to intersect with FT201.
The Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, located about 40 miles north of Silver City in the heart of the Gila Wilderness at the end of SR 15, is a favorite full-day outing for guests staying at Casitas de Gila Guesthouses and Art Gallery. A visit to the Cliff Dwellings Monument offers the opportunity for an easy, one-mile self-guided nature hike along the Cliff Dweller Canyon Loop Trail to visit the Gila Cliff Dwellings. Then, if desired, an additional easy 6-mile round-trip hike can be made up and back down the rugged canyon of the West Fork of the Gila River, visiting an interesting pioneer homestead grave and a prehistoric Native American dwelling site along the way.
After a visit to the Gila Cliff Dwellings, an easy 3-mile hike up the West Fork of the Gila Trail (FT151) can be made starting from the trailhead nearby. This will allow you to further appreciate some of the geology and beautiful rugged canyon characteristics of the interior part of the Gila Wilderness. This short hike will also take you by the pioneer homestead of William Grudging who, as his tombstone relates, on October 8, 1883, was "waylayed and murdered by Tom Wood". The circumstances surrounding this murder make for an interesting investigation into the prioneer history of the area after your return to the Casitas. The turn-around point for the 3-mile hike up the canyon is another small and remote cliff dwellings near a large cave on the west side of the river. These sites offer much for the visitor to ponder on the 3-mile return hike down the canyon.