We took a little trip to the Gila National Forest to check out the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. Once we turned off the interstate, it got desolate, fast. There was a wildfire in the general area, but nowhere close to where we were traveling or planning to stay. It was, however, still close enough to see the fire response going on.
After a couple of hours on a very winding road, to include crossing the continental divide, we made it to our camp site. The campsite was probably less than a quarter mile from the Gila Cliff Dwellings parking lot. In the photo below, if you stick to the canyon on the left, you'll find it - it is very well marked.
It was only a half mile or so uphill to the cliff dwellings, we made it!
The Mogollon (early descendants of the Pueblos) built these nearly a thousand years ago, and then abandoned them.
A park ranger was joking with some kids that this housed an elevator (below), but they weren't having it.
After our hike, Ian and I drove a couple of minutes to the campground to the south of us and hiked the 1/4 mile to these ruins - very similar to the main site.
After that, we headed back to the campsite and finished setting everything up. Our tent complex turned out to be awesome. We have a main tent for Catherine and me in the 10' x 10' canopy, with large tents for the kids, hanging off the ends of the canopy. It turned out to be pretty slick.
I took some photos of the stars. It was a new moon weekend and the skies were dark, but we were in a canyon so trees blocked most of my photos. I woke everyone up pretty early to see the Milky Way. Once everyone was up, I cooked breakfast. We had to pack up and leave early since there was a bike race that was going to close the roads from 9 am - 2 pm. We had places to be, so we hit the road early and beat the races. They had some mountains to climb!
All in all, I think everyone had a good time!
Cheers,
Marc
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