Section 24 is 176.1 miles long and runs from Pie Town, NM to Silver City, NM. This includes the Gila River Alternate route which was so breathtakingly beautiful that it will be broken up into three subsections.
The second is 33.5 miles long and is all in the Gila River Alt Route. November 19th - 20th.
Day 149, 16.2 miles to Gila River marker 60.8
My brand new mattress pad seemed to have already sprung a leak. Bummer. Plus it got extremely cold since we were right next to a big open lake. We had a lazy morning packing up since we were planning to do low mile days through the Gila River and really enjoy it. Soon after entering the long canyon we saw a red-tailed hawk and Hoppah let us know some trivia: you know that super-American screech you associate with a bald eagle? It is actually that of a red tailed hawk. A bald eagle’s screech sounds more like a sea gull’s obnoxious little chirp. Soon the river began filling up and the crossings became knee deep. The sun came out to warm things up and we took a long break along a rocky riverbank.
Recap of Day 149.
Snow Lake.
Dam at the outlet of Snow Lake.
Busy beavers.
Canyon walls closing in.
Then the true Gila River arrived. Massive cliffs and crags towered on either side and gave the whole scene a other-worldly feeling, aside from the myriad of river crossings (~200 over 50 miles.) The cliffs continued to be some of the most impressive things I have ever seen in my entire life. I saw a flock of turkeys and then a bald eagle when we stopped for another break. A few more bald eagles drifted overhead and soon after we resumed hiking we found a weird time-capsule of abandoned gear. It was tucked behind some rocks, very old, and had a full 2-burner propane stove and thick tarp, items that NO thru-hiker would ever carry. It was old and ratty and we could not figure out what to make of it. We pushed on, found a nice campsite, built a fire, and as soon as we got it roaring, it began to rain. Everyone retreated to their tents to eat dinner and go to bed.
Insanely beautiful rock formations. Wish I had energy and climbing gear with me.
This resembled two Banama Masks yelling at each other.
More of that weird, abandoned cache of heavy camp gear.
Day 150, 17.3 miles to Gila River marker 43.5
It was grey out again and we hoped the sun would return to warm up the river crossings and allow us to dry out as much as possible. The massive spires, rock walls, and crazy formations continued and I hiked in total awe for most of the day. We saw a wild boar with her piglets as we kept trekking along. I frequently fell behind because I stopped to take photos at every single turn in the canyon. It was all so unbelievably beautiful, even in the soggy weather.
Endless cliffs.
Crazy spires.
Pretty river crossings.
Are we still on Earth?
The CDT never has a shortage of random bones scattered about.
Hoppah and PS leading the way on a wet and rainy day.
When we got to the turn off the the Jordan Hot Springs we all became giddy with excitement and ran up the hill that was littered with orange leaves. A tree spanned across the pond that was built up around the spring that trickled down a waterfall and some leaves covered the top of the crystal clear water. It looked like a Japanese painted. The sun never came out today so it remained quite cold and this hot spring was just what we needed. There were some of the most amazing campsites nearby and I wished that our mileage had worked out so we could have stayed put for the day.
A brief, but welcome, surprise of blue skies.
Hot Springs.
View from a campsite at the hot springs.
We passed another family of boars and one piglet kept whining while his parents seemed to be shushing him, like as if he was giving away their position to the predators. In hindsight, I wish we took an alt - alt route up Little Bear Canyon but we continued our way down the Gila and soon found another great set of campsites with a fire pit and a sandy floor. The Gila Cliff Dwelling Visitor Center was only 2.2 miles ahead and would be an easy walk the next day. They open at 9am and it would be a good place to warm up, regroup, see the dwellings, and decide what to do. Only I had another night of bad sleep thanks to my sleeping pad’s leak, heavy winds, and noisy rain.
Autumn colors.
Autumn colors with more crazy cliffs.