Month: April 2024

• GxL Day 8, April 9, Tuesday
• Start Little Whitewater Trail campsite
• End Deloche Trail saddle
• Miles walked: 16

Coming off of Little Whitewater Trail to Catwalk Road, I was going to visit the catwalk, but the road was just starting to get resurfaced.

Instead, I took a roadwalk to the trailhead for Gold Dust Trail on Bursum Road. This trail connects with Whitewater Trail, which in this section stays fairly high on the ridge north of Whitewater Creek, with few crossings. The trail is strikingly beautiful, highly recommended.

The trails are in good condition, with recent signs of lopping and sawing. Steep slopes required a large number of hand-built rock walls. Are there any trails in New Mexico that have more constructed stonework than Whitewater Trail?

From Whitewater Trail the GxL switches to Deloche Canyon Trail, with the trail hard to find at the intersection, even though trail flagging has been added at a few spots. Once the trail crosses a small old burn area, it really becomes hard to follow.

Later the trail crosses an eroded drainage. It becomes really hard to climb out of the drainage and find the trail again.

Finally, at dusk, I manage to find the trail again, and make camp on a saddle.

• GxL Day 7, April 8, Monday
• Start Glenwood, Los Olmos Cabins
• End Little Whitewater Trail campsite
• Miles walked: 15

Well, I will need to get off the GxL in a few days, once my ride arrives on Wednesday. Until then, I had skipped a few trails getting into Glenwood, and now is a good time to go back and hike them. It looks like my trip this year may be broken into several sections, and my mission has shifted to “ground-truthing” the route, rather than hiking it all in one continuous trip.

East on Catwalk Road, the route crosses Whitewater Creek and then follows Little Whitewater Trail, roughly paralleling Little Whitewater Creek, but mostly much higher.

Along a ridge, looking back towards Glenwood, the trail is on the edge of two biomes, with juniper and bushes on the north slope and desert vegetation on the south slope.

The trail passes a wider flat area on the ridge, marked as a potential campsite for a trail project that I had planned to attend a year or two ago, but got canceled because of high water. Recent signs of trail work are visible, especially lopping.

The trail continues to climb towards the peaks, high enough to get to snow.

I had hoped to hike beyond Little Whitewater Trail, eventually getting to Holt Apache Trail, but the snow had a steep slide-slope, so I eventually decided to turn around.

The views of Glenwood below show how high we have come.

• GxL Day 6, April 7, Sunday
• Start just past Mogollon mining area private land
• End Glenwood
• Miles walked: 9

Morning views from the road to the land below is rewarding.

I divert from Bursum Rd to Mineral Creek Road, heading towards Alma. An RV park has a cool collection of tractors that I remember from my GET hike.

At the Alma Cafe, over breakfast, I strike up a conversation with Luke, from NM Wild.

After a 5 mile roadwalk south to Glenwood, I check in at Los Olmos cabins, which I also enjoyed from my GET trip.

After a green chile cheeseburger and pie at a nearby cafe…

… I repair gear, and confer with an expert on Gila trails. An anticipated warm spell melting mountain snow will cause rivers to be high for many days, so my planned route cannot be modified to continue safely to any of my resupply towns. This really is a case of “you can’t get there from here”.

So this is now renamed my GxL Practice Hike, to be continued in later months. I have learned a valuable lesson about Gila early season water levels, one that I really should have already known about but had to learn the hard way.

While in Glenwood, I will spend a few more days hiking nearby trails that I am unfamiliar with, and finally get a ride home.