Day trip to Gila Cliff Dwellings

Cath and I decided to take a day trip over to the Gila Cliff dwellings. C&J decided they’d rather have a day off, so we went solo. 

Initially a flat drive, down I25 to the turnoff for hwy 152 towards Silver City, across through a small place called Hillsboro. Once we started to climb into the hills though, it was anything but flat. Very pretty 3-hr drive, not a route to be in a hurry. A lot of it was 20-30 km/h due to sharp curves, and sheer drop-offs at the side of the road. Elevation reached 8,200 feet at Emory Pass, with many spectacular lookout spots. We had a nice lunch stop, with our comfy chairs and a great view. It got up to 28C, clear blue sky.

Shouldn't be a problem today

Still snow at the higher elevations

Not a road to hurry on

Looking back from whence we came

A fire survivor

We turned off 152 at road 35, heading NW to the cliff dwellings. Another pretty drive. We toured the dwellings (National Park, $3 each admission). It took about an hour, with some climbing up and down some pretty steep trails. They have dog kennels at the start of the trail, but we felt our Lab was ok in the car with the back open. Volunteers were stationed at the dwellings to answer any questions we had.

Approaching the cliff dwellings

Views from inside

Ladders helped sometimes

Our Lab couldn't come hiking, but got a good wade afterwards

When leaving we intended to go down road 15, but it had been recently tar-coated, so we went back down 35 to 152. Then over to Bayard, where there was a huge open-pit copper mine, with a viewing area. 

Hard to capture the scale of this gigantic pit

That's one of those huge pit mining dump trucks on the road

Burgers at the Lottaburger place there, then down 180 to Deming, up 26 to Hatch, then on to I25 back to El Butte. The trip home was longer,  faster and more boring than the trip out. This was the right way around for this route. It took the whole day, as we left about 8:30 am and got back after dark.