- CDT NM 2025 Day 10, Wednesday, April 16
- Start GRA mile 36.6
- End Gila River High Route GRHR mile 14.4
- Miles walked: 6.1 GRA + 14.4 GRHR + 6 miles Cliff Dwellings = 26.5
After hiking a few more miles along the Gila River, I reach a bridge and climb up to a road. Here is the view of the river from the bridge
A roadwalk to Gila Hot Springs takes me to Doc Campbell’s Trading Post, well-known and beloved among CDT and GET hikers.
I did not expect them to be open today, Wednesday, the one day they are closed. But if they spot CDT hikers waiting around the porch, they will often open up, which they did for me! I needed some extra food beyond what I had brought from Silver City, because the Hiker Hunger is setting in. And their Lemon Berry homemade ice cream is a welcome treat.
I meet Mesa Man at Doc Campbell’s. He has already been at Gila Hot Springs for one night.
I divert to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument to play tourist. The vault toilet near the entrance had a mural painted on an inside wall, a nice touch.
The natural cliff overhand had been used by hunter-gatherers for hundreds of years, but the rooms built into the cliff were only used from 1275 to 1300AD, then abandoned.
When possible on this hike, I try to take an alternate that I did not take on my previous CDT hike. I start the Gila River High Route, available for hikers on high water years when the many river crossings on the Middle Fork of the Gila might be impractical.
There are not many chances for water on the higher out, and they may be all dried up. I have a couple of chances to divert down to the River Route if I need to.
The root ascends to a relatively flat high area, pleasant hiking.
I can see the cliff walls of the Middle Fork.
At Prior Creek there is a cabin, but the water has dried up.
Finished audiobook The Emperor’s Candlesticks, by Baroness Orczy.