WalkingCarrot

Reporting from Reserve New Mexico, where we’re relaxing (if you call busy getting resupply chores done a form of relaxing). We’re 3 weeks and 270 miles done, about a third of the way for this summer’s walk.

In Sheep Corral Canyon, north of Silver City we came across a well fed, but easily spooked, Black Bear. He would have stayed hidden in the dry stream bed where he was feeding, but got startled at our approach and ran straight up the canyon wall, answering an important question – yes, they do, in woods, even on a dead run.

Without a doubt, the highlight of this last section was the Gila Wilderness and it’s stunning canyons!
Beyond being breathtaking and beautiful, the canyons of the Gila and the Middle Fork of the Gila offered stark contrasts to both the deserts or higlands through which we have also walked. For one thing, the canyons have water. And that changes everything else: different habitats for flora and fauna (think lush and green), no need to carry 2 gallons each (think 16 pounds) water, and very wet feet. We crossed the two streams, along with a “sidetrip” up the Gilita (see the daily journals for more on that “expedition”), 250 times. The canyons were places preferred by the beaver, deer, and elk too – including some trophy sized bulls!

We have Aldo Leopold to thank for the vision of setting aside the immense Gila Wilderness, and preserving for us the opportunity of experiencing this desert oasis. Aldo Leopold (author of “A Sand County Almanac”) was the Gila Forsest Supervisor in the 1920’s and set aside this part of the Gila as a Primative Area. This visionary management action was the precursor to the creation of America’s Wilderness System.

Leaving the canyons we returned to the highlands, hiking first across rolling grasslands with Antelope and then following a high, dry canyon filled with Ponderoas Pines, Elk, Cows and Coyotes to it’s head at a 9,000 foot pass. Water was scarce and we had to fend off a bull circling a water tank to get to the trickle of water coming in.

The trail north of the pass was closed due to a forest fire, so we were forced to detour on a forest service road to highway 12, our route back to civilization.

270 miles