Gila National Forest
New Mexico
The Gila in southwest New Mexico is a cauldron of colliding ecosystems: the Chihuahuan Desert, the Sonoran Desert, the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, the Mexican Plateau, the Great Basin, and Mexico's Sierra Madre all converge here.
Cliff Dwelling
Cactus-speckled deserts give way to windswept grasslands; soaptree yucca and ocotillo surrenders to juniper, pine, spruce and aspen. The Mogollon Mountains rise up without warning out of the vast and flat surrounding desert, cresting with magnificent monolithic sentries like the 10,892-foot Whitewater Baldy. Other magnificent mountain ranges within the forest include the Black, Tularosa, Elk, and Mimbres.
The 3 million acres of the Gila are at once tranquil and harsh. Appropriately, this is land where the fierce Apache, led by Geronimo, once roamed. Before the Apache, another band of Native Americans tried to carve out some sort of existence in the Gila's raw and intolerable landscape. The ruins at Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument are a testament to the vanity of that effort. In this otherworldly terrain, any stay - - even yours - - can perhaps only be temporary.
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