Black Mountain
Lookout Tower
Photo by
Dru Claridge

This is the most beautiful place on earth," I said to my cat our first evening at Black Mountain tower together. I had just ridden horseback up here; Kipper had travelled with me, safe in her pet taxi. Now she stood on her hind legs to look out the window. She trembled, whether at her distance off the ground or at the wilderness all around us, I couldn’t say.

From the tower we could see much of the Gila’s three million acres. Visible over the treetops were wooded hills, bare mesas, canyons and ridges, and Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. To the west, the Mogollon Mountains glowed in the sunset at 11,000 feet. To the north were the bare and lonesome Plains of San Agustín, cut by curiously shaped hills.

On the peak were the amenities that would make life bearable for the next three months. A small cabin below was kitchen, pantry, and washhouse, with a refrigerator and a hot plate that ran on bottled gas. Next to the cabin a cistern collected water from the tin roof. I would work eight to ten hours a day in the tower, and sleep up there on one of the two bunks. An outhouse nestled below in the trees.

A cold wind talked around the tower corners when we slipped into my sleeping bag together for our first night on Black Mountain. Kipper snuggled behind my knees, and I fell into an exhausted sleep. In the night I awoke, disoriented: My first glimpse through the tower windows made me feel I might be drowning in a sea of stars.

The next morning, Kipper followed me down the three flights of stairs to the cabin and discovered her assignment for the summer: rodent hunter. She spent her days and many of her nights decimating the mouse population that inhabited the cabin foundations. I was glad I had equipped her with a brand-new flea collar. For weeks I swept out the dead mice while she watched from a high shelf. Black and long- haired, she was barely discernible in the gloom of the tiny cabin, but I could make out the look of benign contentment in her golden eyes. She took her responsibilities very seriously, only leaving the cabin if I persuaded her.

This fire season, 1996, had the look of a very bad one. The woods were brown and dry, the wildlife behaving strangely in the drought. Birds flocked in constant motion around the peak, seeking relief from the heat below. Normally shy elk walked right under the tower. The last week in May I was visited four nights in a row by a mountain lion, who cursed the drought with growling, snarling, horrid noises that I couldn’t at first identify.

In the early part of June, we always have dry lightning on the Gila. Superheated air from the desert rises up the mountain slopes, meeting the cool air at higher elevations. Lightning stabs the ground, but there is little if any rainfall: fires ignite easily. True to form, we were very busy in June.

The dry forest, the high winds, the fires, and the snarling mountain lion made me nervous. I sat up nights, watching flames sparkle crimson in the dark. Some were only the flicker of a single tree burning in the night; some marched along the landscape like a giant in Seven-League boots. Some fires were pushed by 25-mile-an-hour winds that rattled the tower. In the day, the sun turned red from smoke, and for a short while the visibility on Black Mountain was reduced to five miles.

Showers eased the situation in the latter part of June, mercifully curtailing the firefighting season. All the wild creatures moved off from the peak, and I never heard the lion again. Now I could settle into a routine.

Kipper, who slept with me in my bag in the chill nights at 9,000 feet, rose with me at dawn. She sat in the sun, washing her ears and putting her black fur to rights, while I combed my hair, washed my face, and dressed. After that, you guessed it, was the tramp down the west side of the peak to the outhouse and the pleasant view of Douglas firs.

Gila River Canyon.
This canyon could be seen by the author from the lookout tower.
Photo by Carla DeMarco

The routine included a trip to town every ten days. I hiked or rode horseback down the mountain, caught a ride with a Forest Service vehicle to Beaverhead Work Station, and from there drove to Silver City. Four days later I repeated the trip in reverse. A secondary lookout took over for me while I was gone. What a relief to get back to my mountain!

Alone, I stared at the Gila for days from the lookout tower, listening to the wind moaning around the corners of the tower, writing my life down in spiral notebooks between hours of fire activity. The experience answered a great hunger in me: a need for solitude, a need for beauty.

Daily I made 360-degree sweeps with binoculars from the tower. Starting with the San Mateo Mountains, low and blue to the northeast, I then swung clockwise, the binoculars revealing the rugged country on the west side of the Black Range. The Black Range is 100 miles long and the surveyors who mapped it ran out of names: many peaks and canyons are not labelled. This is bothersome to a lookout, who must identify the exact spot where a smoke is seen. Much of the Black Range country is in the Aldo Leopold Wilderness.

Eighty miles away, Cooke’s Peak is dim in the distance, overlooking the Mimbres Valley. South of me is Copperas Peak, where State Highway 15 begins its descent to Gila Hot Springs and Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. At night from up here I see headlights on the grade below Copperas; it is a drop of 1500 feet.

Now I come to the heart of the Gila Wilderness. I see only ridgetops from here: Brushy Mountain, Granny Mountain, Granite Peak, White Pinnacle, Shelly Peak. When I reach the upper waters of the Middle and West Forks of the Gila River, I am glassing forests that have never been cut. Small, clear streams start down the mountainsides under moss-draped fir trees; truly the headwaters of the Gila River.

After glassing the Snow Lake area, I turn to Eagle Peak, where another lookout also scans for smoke. Now the Elks: Elk Mountain, Middle Elk, and East Elk are a daily litany for me. From my post on Black Mountain, all this country beckons to be investigated. How could I ever visit all the remote canyons and unnamed peaks of the Black Range, the junctions of streams in the deep canyons of the Mogollons?

I have seen some of it, walking trails and riding horseback in the Gila, and cannot say if one method of locomotion is better than the other. Is it better to sit by a waterfall and become lost in the ferns and dappled sunlight? Or is it better to pass through acres of wildflowers, climbing into Douglas fir and rustling aspen, letting the horse watch the trail while I spot elk, antelope, and deer?

My last trip to Black Mountain tower was just like that. We rode horseback from the fringes of Cooney Prairie, which was thick with flowers and an aromatic crop of fresh wild onions. Elk moved off at our approach and the sunlight saturated us. We rode among tall Ponderosa pines, where mountains spiralled from the blue distance to green proximity, from heaven to ourselves.

The Gila had changed since my watch that summer began. A half inch of rain per week was falling. The brown woods had turned lush and green, and wildflowers sprang up like old friends, thronging the top of the peak. Working on the tower that summer, I had watched the clouds and studied the country day after day. In the interactions of sun, water, seed, and soil; in the cleavage and weathering of rocks – in so many ways! – I could see the All. Deep one night, sleeping in the tower, I heard its voice in the music of an Aeolian choir.

This happened just before I left Black Mountain, when the arc of seasons hangs motionless in August, not yet ready to bend back to autumn. One morning I awoke at 4 a.m. to hear a deep note followed by a high-pitched chorus. The wind, as always, was crooning around the corners of the tower. This time it serenaded me in the voices of the masculine and feminine: I had chanced on an opera from a nearby dimension. Saturn glittered in the eastern sky. Miles of Gila National Forest spiralled out from my bunk into the vast black universe. Kipper slept warmly behind my knees. My time on the tower was nearing completion, consummated now by this intimate communication with the Universe. My world was absolute perfection.

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Aldo Leopold

It is autumn 1919, in a wild and scenic area of New Mexico’s Gila Forest. A young assistant district forester named Aldo Leopold is on horseback, trying to imagine what his surroundings will be like if a proposed road system goes through, a "civilizing" influence becoming all too familiar in other forests of the Southwest.

Not here, he resolves. Something must be done to save it so future generations will be able to enjoy the purity and beauty of this back country.

Leopold, with the aid of a few like-minded U.S. Forest Service colleagues, and strongly supported by the local community, eventually persuaded his employer that the area should remain free of roads and be preserved for wilderness recreation.

On June 3, 1924, 755,000 acres were set aside by the Forest Service, as the Gila Wilderness. It was the world’s first designated wilderness land.

Leopold’s next cause was a logical progression. What good were wild habitats without wild creatures to live in them? He became passionately dedicated to promoting sensible game management.

Applying the word "management" though, would be somewhat of a misnomer in an historical context. It implies there was a specific plan to control the use of game.

Back then, policy makers simply restricted hunting so game would last longer. They accepted that many wildlife species would inevitably go the way of the passenger pigeon and great North Atlantic auk, and be hunted to extinction, or die off from loss of habitats.

Some large game, for example the once prolific grizzly bear, were almost gone in the West already, even in sizable forests like the Gila. Only a few survivors were left, and they were migrating north, to the safer wilds of Canada.

Conservation and restoration of game was not a new concept, but few people regarded it as a renewable resource that could be directed, much like a farmer manages crops in his fields. Ideas were plentiful, but a broad-based approach to game, rooted in scientific research, and defining specific game related problems and solutions, was non-existent.

Leopold found solutions, and a young audience of converts to carry them forward.

Four years after the Gila Wilderness was established, he was lecturing on the subject at the University of Wisconsin. Later he taught Wildlife Ecology there and served as the first chairman of a new Department of Wildlife Management. Under his tutelage the profession began to move out of the pioneering stage and into a respectable realm of highly educated, field-trained, wildlife specialists.

His monumental work, Game Management, first published in 1933 as a textbook, was used as a blueprint for several important federal conservation laws. Its techniques and principles are durable. Today, it would be difficult to find a game manager or wildlife conservationist anywhere in the world who has not studied from it or who does not keep a well-thumbed copy within easy reach.

His "land ethic" writings still teach and inspire. All conservation efforts affecting man and animal alike, Leopold was convinced, begins with the land.

He crisscrossed the forests, deserts, and plains of this country and Mexico’s several times through the years, studying soil. His conclusions changed several widespread misperceptions of soil erosion, and subsequent loss of valuable watershed and farmlands. By the time he died in 1948, ecology was growing up and becoming a precise science.

Aldo Leopold was eminently suited for the roles of conservation innovator and leader of forestry and game management. Duck hunts and nature walks were a cherished part of his early childhood. He chose the fledgling forestry service as a career because it included the best of both worlds:  the irresistible outdoors and the sport of hunting.

His lifetime love for both did not begin to fully evolve into a committed goal for integrated conservation, which included predators, until one fateful encounter with a wolf and her cubs.

Eating lunch on a rim rock, high above a turbulent stream, he and some companions saw a form, breast-deep, fording the white water below. At first, they mistook the animal for a deer. As it climbed onto a bank toward them, they realized it was a wolf. A half-dozen others, evidently grown pups, sprang out of the willows, tails wagging, to playfully welcome her.

In those days, it would have never occurred to any of them not to shoot wolves. When the rifles were empty and the smoke cleared, the female lay dying, and a cub limped away, leg dragging, disappearing into impassable rocks. In their excitement, and shooting down a steep hill, their aim had been more enthusiastic than accurate.

Decades later, in his 1949 book of classic essays, A Sand County Almanac, Leopold marked this event as a turning point in his life, both professionally and personally. He recalled, "We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes . . . something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunter’s paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view."

In his Forward to Sand County Almanac, Leopold wrote, "There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot." He could not.

Other people who cannot often visit our country’s oldest wilderness, the Gila, now celebrating its 75th year. If it’s true, and many believe it is, that a strong spirit lives on, then perhaps Aldo Leopold’s can be said to dwell here. Certainly his legacies do. Perhaps he can be heard by pausing on a quiet trail, and listening to a mountain . . . in this wild and scenic place he helped to preserve.

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Jordan Hot Springs

From tall ponderosa to golden desert to high mountain peaks, the Gila National Forest in Southern New Mexico offers a veritable smorgasbord of natural wonders.  One of the area’s strongest attractions seems unlikely in the Gila’s arid climate:  hot water direct from the earth.  Hot springs dot the area, offering soaking opportunities for visitors of every inclination.  Although some springs are commercially developed, many within the bounds of the National Forest offer opportunities for wilderness bathing.

Hot springs in the Gila vary in their accessibility.  A trip to the Middle Fork hot springs, for example, only requires a half hour walk and a couple of river crossings, while others are a full day’s hike and an overnight stay away.  But whether you’re feeling adventurous or mellow, you can always find a chance for a relaxing soak in a beautiful outdoor setting.  With a little exploration, visitors can discover quiet, remote springs.

Middle Fork Hot Springs

Cliffs on the Middle Fork

Only have an hour or two to spend seeking hot springs? Not sure about your stamina or fitness level? Try a trip to the Middle Fork Hot Springs.  These springs are perfect for a short afternoon outing.  The water comes out at more than 130 degrees Fahrenheit, so visitors have dug a number of shallow pools next to the river.  The blending of river water and hot springs water produces a comfortably hot soaking temperature.  At this point, the middle fork canyon is still wide, but surrounding cliffs provide a dramatic backdrop for your hot springs dip.  Springtime visitors can watch migratory birds fly overhead while they soak.

The Middle Fork Hot Springs are located about half a mile north of the Gila Wilderness Visitors’ Center at the north end of Highway 15.  To access the springs, drive to the parking lot beyond the center.  On foot, drop into the Middle Fork canyon and head upstream.  You’ll find the pools beyond the second river crossing, on the east side of the river.  At the springs, the trail veers sharply over a large rock.  

Jordan Hot Springs

If you have more time and a yen for a serious hike, a visit to Jordan Hot Springs should be on your Southern New Mexico itinerary.  A trip to Jordan Hot Springs is an all-day hike, starting early and ending late, or an overnight backpacking trip.  But once you’re there, you’ll be glad you made the effort to visit these springs.  More accurately called warm springs, these springs offer a pleasant soaking opportunity far from civilization.  Tucked into a little cubby hole above the Middle Fork, Jordan Hot Springs must be one of the most beautiful spots in the Gila.

Valerie Messervy and her dogs on their way to Jordan Hot Springs

Getting to Jordan Hot Springs is straightforward.  Start at the Visitors’ Center and continue past the Middle Fork Springs.  Jordan Hot Springs is located about 8 miles upstream from the Visitors’ Center.  Be prepared to get your feet wet; there are about 50 river crossings on this route. Do not try this route when the river is high, usually in early spring or during the summer rainy season.

Alternatively, you can hike in from TJ’s Corral.  Drive to TJ’s (on Highway 15, turn left toward the Cliff Dwellings instead of the Visitors’ Center) and take Trail 729.  The trail climbs gradually to the junction with the Meadows Trail (Trail 164) and then descends into Little Bear Canyon.  For a special treat walk through this narrow canyon in late summer or early fall, when it is filled with beautiful, rare wildflowers.  Do not enter the canyon during flash flood weather, however.  Cross the Middle Fork and head upstream, crossing the river 15 times in all and traveling about 2 miles.  The springs are on the northeast side of the canyon, just beyond and above a wet area.

Jordan Hot Springs is extremely popular with backpackers and horsepackers, especially during college spring break times and holidays.  Check with the Forest Service for "leave no trace" camping guidelines.  Please be especially conscientious if you choose to visit these springs.

Turkey Creek Hot Springs

The more adventurous might want to try a trip to Turkey Creek Hot Springs in the southern Gila.  These springs are best visited as an overnight backpacking trip.  Several pools dot Turkey Creek in the area of the springs, each with a different temperature for your soaking pleasure.

There is no maintained trail to these springs, and you’ll find yourself wading, bouldering, and squeezing through some tight spots.  The springs cannot be reached horseback.  Although these springs are difficult to access, they are popular amongst intrepid hikers.

Take Highway 180 to the town of Gila, and turn north on Turkey Creek Road. Stay on this road until it ends. Park where the road is washed out, cross the river, and hike to the mouth of Turkey Creek (Trail 155). Follow Trail 155 for about 2.5 miles, to the point where it turns up Skeleton Canyon to the rim of Sycamore Canyon. Continue traveling upstream for about 1.5 miles to find the hot pools.

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West Fork of the Gila River Photo by the Author.

Pull the plug. Leave conveniences behind. Take the minimum. It’s time to escape the noise and demands of daily life and rediscover mountains, water, trees, animals and the art of recharging.

The road heads north, from the pass of El Paso to the cross of Las Cruces and farther to the spot where you turn west and leave the Rio Grande’s fertile sides. As you travel towards Hillsboro, the road rolls and twists, breaking the straightness and monotony of the Interstate. Now it’s time to pay attention; driving becomes work and fun, a test of your attentive ability. It takes effort to escape; the efforts can test your reactions and the fitness of your vehicle. Small trees start to appear. The feeling of going upward gradually becomes obvious.

Beyond the small town which celebrates the autumn festival of apples you find rocks, small canyons, some trees. As the miles pass, the scenery turns greener. Trees are now plentiful and taller. The dullness and tans of the desert are behind you; great mountains of granite and diverse forests of iridescent greens lie ahead. Unknown narrow highways challenge the virgin traveler. It takes physical effort to make your small vehicle climb upward; it takes confidence to slow it before a curve.

Straight lines on maps, showing a distance of forty miles, are deceptive; it will take over three hours to cross the Mimbres and reach The Gila Wilderness’ valley of serenity. Narrow hairpin curves keep you alert as the smallest mistake can hurl you down deep forested chasms. Despite the demands at hand I begin to relax, knowing each mile takes me closer to my destination; nearer to peace, calmness and nature’s wondrous beauty. I deserve this. I earned it, and I will enjoy every minute of it.

The quiet valley of destination is perhaps a quarter mile wide. It is easily seen that this was once a very wide, deep and fast flowing river. The sides are smooth, grown over in spots where the mountains contained softer materials, still hard and jagged in other areas. Trees grow on the softer sides, close together and straight up, nourished by the saturation of today’s stream – a small trickle of its past might. Along the sides lay rocks, washed and slowly worn from rough to smooth. Now they feel water only at times when nature sends rain or melting snow. A flood came through here recently:  Weaker and dying trees were uprooted and tossed downstream by violent waters. Many lay at the base of stronger trees which were capable of withstanding nature’s violence. Campers will cut the fallen trees, haul them away and make evening campfires throughout the summer. I will camp, cut and clear wood here.

A young girl dressed in green walks gracefully through the stream below me. She reaches the far side, looks down to note the wetness of her dress and continues away from the small children playing in the shallows of water’s edge. Further downstream she settles and casts her bait into the water, knowing the children have chased the fish away with their splashing laughter. A lone black and white crane passes over my shoulder and continues down the center of the stream to where the fork meets the deeper waters of the Gila River.

Listen to the thunderous roar of water as it awakens your senses, flowing over barriers of small rocks, cascading as a small waterfall a few feet away. Watch the water as it flows over rocks, turns to momentary liquid diamonds, spreads floating bubbles and circular ripples outward, only to be broken and created again when it crests the next barrier. Lean back on a massive boulder at the stream’s side and study the colors in the water. Look upstream and find the small deer pair dipping their heads, then raising them cautiously and scampering back into the thicket at the sound of the joyous children. Raise your camera and take a picture. Try to capture this kaleidoscope of soft motions and serenity your mind will vividly remember long after you have left the valley of nature’s living harmony.

Late at night, breathe the smoke from a camper’s fire, sweet, glowing embers of dry mesquite. Squint your eyes in the musky illumination created by a three-quarter waning moon, smoke-hazed dark shadows below canopies of tree branches. The absence and dilution of light. The presence of light in the openness, creating crystal reflections when breaking over a half sunken log a short distance upstream. As the moon’s light leaves the small valley, layers of stars will take its place, the sky solid with light ending its long journey, some of the rays having started their trip earthward before the valley was created.

Several miles north of the peaceful valley are flat-faced cliffs with hollow caves where Indians lived eight hundred years ago. They built walls in front of the caves for protection from the elements. They climbed to the mesas above in their daily routine of tending crops of corn, squash and beans. A narrow foot trail will take you to the caves; much of the Indians’ daily life can be seen and surmised. Sadly, early travelers and settlers to the area plundered valuable clues of the past, leaving many questions of the Indians’ existence unanswered. With certainty, they absorbed, studied and enjoyed the same stars, waters and scenery we see today.

Nature lives, works, creates and dies here in the Gila Wilderness. She allows us to visit, observe, and replenish our spirits. Valleys and forests such as these are not unique; they exist in many places; there are thousands of them. Pull the plug and go find yours . . .

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Smallmouth Bass – the author’s dreamfish Photo by M.H. Salmon.

Within the limits of his size, the Smallmouth Bass is the perfect game fish, and just the fish to bring a sleepy-eyed boy to life.

The Smallmouth Bass may well be our finest freshwater gamefish; I think he is. Clearly, he is superior to his bass cousins. The White Bass is a small, staid, tasteless fish compared to the Smallmouth, a school fish given to running, en masse, in man-made lakes. The White Bass is a common fish. The Largemouth Bass has too large a following to be as easily dismissed as the White Bass. It is likely that the Largemouth is the single most sought after species in North America. I think this is because the Largemouth is ubiquitous, at least in the nation’s lakes and reservoirs, strikes viciously on artificials, and is a great leaper. The Largemouth is a better eating fish than the White Bass and, all said, is a very good fish; but not even the Largemouth tournament winners and aficionados will claim their fish has the speed, élan or strength per pound of the Smallmouth.

In terms of quality, the Smallmouth has more in common with trout than with bass. The Smallmouth is about the size of a brook trout. The number of each species that has been caught weighing over ten pounds you could probably count on your fingers. The vast majority come to the net at between one and three pounds. Like trout, the Smallmouth often inhabits the most attractive waters. Natural, cold water Canadian Lakes surrounded by conifers and hardwoods and miles from any habitation have Smallmouth Bass. Swift, clear water streams, whitened by intermittent rapids that run over rocks are home to the Smallmouth. Here they may be readily sought with flies. The Smallmouth is in all ways a fine fish, a dream fish with the attributes of trout plus more fight; and, like trout, the pursuit of the Smallmouth holds a certain mystique. The Smallmouth angler, like the trout angler, may be a bit of an elitist. His is an esoteric calling; as he seeks a tasty fish who inhabits pristine waters and fights like no other in this world, the Smallmouth angler may come to think of himself as among the select. Why not? – he pursues a select fish.

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If you ask game and fish personnel how Smallmouth Bass got in the upper Gila River of New Mexico you get a variety of answers. Some say Arizona biologists did it, some say it was New Mexico’s, some surmise it was a surreptitious "sport" who turned a few loose late one night. It is certain they were introduced and that they have found a home there as a naturally reproducing fish. Up high, above 6,000 feet, you don’t find them. They give way to colder waters and to trout. Downstream, approaching 4,000 feet, you don’t find them. They give way to warmer waters and to catfish. In between, over a fifty-mile stretch, they are the dominant game fish of the Gila, lurking in the green pools in an otherwise shallow river, the waters oxygenated by numerous rapids, nicely spaced.

I had been seeking catfish, with moderate success, all summer – a fitting quarry for a dreamy kid grown older. But a couple of all night vigils on the riverbank seated by a forked stick with no results will convince even the most phlegmatic that it’s time to pick up the pace. I bought some waterdogs in Silver City and, about noon, stopped in at one of the few restaurants in town open on a Sunday, the hush-quiet, carpeted dining room of the local chain motel. I ate an excellent chile/cheese omelet, drank a lot of coffee, read the Albuquerque Journal, and watched folks. They ate and talked cautiously, seemingly oblivious to the day. Mostly out of town travelers and church people, who would spend the day indoors; it’s likely not a one of them knew what was out there on the Gila River, or elsewhere in what remains of the wilderness Southwest. Poor folks, in my view.

At the confluence where the dry wash of Mogollon Creek meets the Gila I left my truck, shouldered a day pack and headed upstream. The Gila was blue/green, crystal clear, winding, and easily crossed on foot. I could have taken the truck on up, but I don’t approve and anyway I needed the walk. There was a gathering of swimmers and picnic people along the first half mile and a couple of catfish fishermen in the mile above that. I saw some nice pools and riffles but kept walking on up into the box, which starts at the first narrowing by the gauge station. Just above that, the river makes a sharp turn around a rock wall, almost an `S’ in the slim canyon. This is where the Bureau of Reclamation had plans (and may still have) to build a dam. The dam would have formed a lake on which the rah! rah! boys in their brilliant jumpsuits could have powered around seeking . . . bass mostly. Might be we could even have a tournament here!

Very much alone, I crept up to the edge of the green pool washed out deep by the current against the rock wall where the engineers planned all that cement. There were several Smallmouth visible as cruising shadows in the depths. I could seen no reason for altering the condition of fishing. Stepping back, I scooped a waterdog from out of the bait bucket and skewered him through the base of his tail. I lofted him out and when he hit the water he quit struggling and sank slowly, his limbs outstretched like a sky diver. He went down out of sight and promptly something picked him up. I struck, then gave line to one wicked run and then the hook pulled out. The waterdog had come loose, too. Having an idea what the problem was, I baited up the smallest waterdog in the bucket. I lofted him out and down he went and just as promptly something picked him up. The fish headed for the bottom, pulled strongly, briefly, and then I lost him. I tried once more and this time put the bait in the water where I could see the approach. A Smallmouth Bass came from out of the hole, shoveled up a good portion of the waterdog but didn’t get much of the hook. He ran off, I struck, and he left with my bait.

These waterdogs were about right for catfish, five pounds and up, which is what I’d been fishing for all summer. They were too large for bass twelve to fifteen inches long. More to the point, they were fine for the bass, too big for the fishing. I went upstream a short ways to the next pool, stayed back away from it while I tied on a spinner. Keeping well away, I lofted the spinner to the downstream end of the pool, let it sink, then drew it back up briskly. I hooked one, kept pressure on but didn’t horse him. My spinning rod was light, whippy, and I let the fish wear himself out. He covered the pool a half dozen times doing it. He came in slick and green with faint vertical brackets. I kept him.

The good fight had evidently put the rest of the bass on hold as I was unable to draw any more fish from that pool. I fished a can of sardines out of my pack, leaned up against a low bank underneath a sycamore, opened the can and had supper, stabbing the little fish and eating them off my knife. There was more shade than sun now in the canyon, and it was pleasant and cool in the shade where I ate. Six bighorn sheep, three ewes and three lambs, came down out of the rough hills to the river about one hundred yards upstream. They made a clatter coming over the rocks and I heard them before I saw them. They drank, crossed over, and slowly diminished in the cliffs on the north side, going up the rocks with confidence and a seeming nonchalance. I watched them go for a long time. Then I fell asleep . . .

Upstream in long shadows I found an oversize hellgrammite under a big rock well away from the stream. I favored him, not knowing why, over the spinner in what was left of the day, after my nap. He was a nasty looking little beggar, and mean and not happy with the intrusion on his space. His pincers had impressive strength but I got him hooked on the end of a long leader with a small sliding sinker above the swivel. I tossed him upstream and let him drift down into the new pool. There was a quick response in the deep water; I gave a little slack, then gently drew up firm and said, "Mister, you have had it!" A good bass – quick, tough, and a leaper.

Two, each a little over a foot long, were just right to go home with. And it was getting dark. Down out of the box nearing the truck in a long stretch of slack water, a Great Blue Heron lifted off, nearly invisible against the darkening hills, then a clear silhouette led by an arched neck up against the backlit sky which was a little pink, a little blue, and a few wispy clouds. A sleepy-eyed boy was drifting on down to the picnic grounds in an inner tube; he had his head tilted back in a reverie watching that bird and didn’t seem to notice me as I walked by.

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Gila Cliff Dwellings Photo by Carla DeMarco

Cliff dwellings. What an unremarkable phrase for such a remarkable feat. An entire village carved out of solid rock. Carved not with the bulldozers and explosives that we so casually use today to gouge mortal wounds into Mother Earth, but with primitive tools and back-breaking labor. Carved not to pillage or destroy but to settle into Earth’s protective bosom as children settle into their mothers’ laps.

New Mexico’s Pueblo Indians built these great villages to survive – to be safe from man’s greatest predator – man himself. In the process, they managed to build cities without devastating the Mother who protected them.

When you come, visit this extraordinary sight during a time when visitors are few. If possible, walk the path alone or with someone you love. Listen to the silence. You will hear the spirit voices of the ancients call to their gods. You will feel the presence of a proud race of people who left their ghosts to guard the homes they had to leave.

Close your eyes and smell the fragrant smoke of cooking fires. Hear the grinding of stone against stone crushing dried corn into baking flour. Listen!

Can you hear a young mother crooning softly to the baby in her lap while she sews soft rabbit skins together to keep her child warm when the snows come and winter winds wail?

Do you smile at the boasts of young warriors as they hurl their spears and draw their bows in games to sharpen their hunting skills?

You can detect a whisper of history from the unseen, shriveled mouths of old men teaching young boys what they have learned, and old women tending laughing ghost children as they play at learning to tread carefully along the cliff’s edges. The women know that soon, the youngsters will scramble up and down the steep cliffs like mountain goats.

Open your eyes and they will be gone.

Only the wind remains to sing its melody to the deserted landscape. Sagebrush stretches across the plains below hiding the shadows of an ancient people that once shared this land with God.

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You sit around enough campfires or barrooms with enough fisherman and you realize that every one of us is pleased to argue for our favorite fish, favorite fishing spot, and favorite method of pursuing fish. Like the endless debates over guns, game animals, and calibers, these are arguments that won’t go away, and that outdoor writers will forever milk for copy.

I’m no different, except perhaps that I may be more willing than most to admit that my angling references may change, depending on the day, or time of year, or what species was hitting or what water was producing the last time I went out. Right now I’m high on smallmouth bass, the Gila River and fly fishing.

It may not last. If I make it over to Elephant Butte this fall and catch a big flathead off the bank at midnight I’ll come home thinking that all night baitfishing for catfish in a big reservoir is the supreme angling experience.

I’ve seen carp in the Rio Grande as long as your leg. A #6 hook with two kernels of corn presented just right with a medium weight glass rod could yield a battle that a trophy muskellunge would be hard pressed to match.

The unlofty reputation of the carp permeates the conversations of anglers nationwide. Anyone who’s tied into a big one on a fair rig knows better, and if he’s anything but a fish bigot, he’ll admit it.

A local fisherman reported to me that the white bass are running at Caballo. Spin casting into schools of white bass that are hitting anything that moves may be the fastest action available in fresh water. If I had been at Caballo this week, I’d probably be writing about white bass right now.

But at the moment I’m high on bass and stream fishing and wilderness and fly rods and therein lies a fish tale.

Our local Gila River, at its best, has a great capacity for fish production, especially when you consider that for most of the year it’s more of a stream than a river, running at less than 100 cfs. It’s been a long time, however, since the Gila has been at its best.

Little or no regulation of livestock grazing, blow-out floods, the cavorting of ORVs (often in defiance of regulation) and ash runoff from forest fires have all been battering our fish. The ash runoff has been the biggest hit.

At least twice in my recent memory the ash from white-hot forest fires has come rolling down long stretches of the Gila after big rains. Both times the water turned black and the fish belly-up.

A certain reach of the river that I’m fond of, for it has been prime for bass and good for trout, was hit both times by this black water. When I went there three years ago I could hardly find a fish.

Last year I did manage to catch a few bass but in several trips I could never find one over eight inches long. This summer angler Rex and I went up there hoping for a stream restored. We weren’t disappointed.

No cow tracks, no tire tracks, a narrowing channel, firmer banks, deeper pools, and a remarkable re-growth of vegetation showed that the Gila can heal itself given half a chance. The only thing in scarce supply was trees of size to shade the water. But the young cottonwoods, willows and sycamores lining the banks gave a promise of things to come.

The fish are back, too. Not all the way back, but the bass at least are making babies and growing to size.

A goodly number fell to our bead head nymphs, wooly buggers, pistol pete’s, and whatever else we threw at them. Most were small but about a half dozen were ten inches (double figures is my arbitrary mark for bass respectability) or better.

At one pretty green pool I drifted a wooly bugger deep and tightened the line on one of those smallmouth bass that has caused the fish to be graded as "ounce for ounce and pound for pound, the gamest fish that swims." Well I agree, at least for fish in fresh water.

For me, the four components of "fight" in a hooked fish are: dash, propensity to jump, power, and endurance. The smallmouth has garnered the accolade of "gamest" because the species so often displays all four components in a single, hooked fish.

This fish hit the fly like he was mad at it. He raced the pool, end to end, in a heartbeat, then did it again, then cleared the water at the end of the second run. Then he settled down to pump the rod for several counted minutes, displaying power and endurance to go with the dash and jump already marked.

When the fish finally gave it up and came to the shallows he was about a foot long. Of course, stream smallmouth are a delicacy to boot, but the Gila is still recovering so we turned this one, like all the rest, loose.

This was great fishing. To catch the gamest fish that swims, born and raised in the stream, in the nation’s first wilderness, by fooling it with a fly, hooks a fisher to one of the elite experiences in North American angling.

Meanwhile, angler Rex was catching twice as many bass as me. But I’d caught all the big ones; for most of the day he couldn’t break that ten-inch barrier.

We were on the way back to the vehicle when angler Rex stopped to fish a deep run and he hooked and landed a bass over a foot long. This may have been the biggest fish of the day and he did everything a wild bass should do but jump. Maybe next time.

I had in mind to try one more pool before we quit. But when I got there, not far from the roadhead, I found several people using it for a swimming hole.

As I walked by, one fellow, standing way up on a big boulder, turned and asked how I’d done. I said I’d done all right.

"Where are they?" he asked.

"Turned `em back," I said.

His look was momentarily bewildered. Then he turned, shouted to his mates to get their attention, and jumped with a mighty splash into the Gila River.

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I took a trail the other day that wound its way far above the Gila River. After a mile or so, I left the trail and dropped off the ridge into a deep bowl covered with tall, old ponderosa pines. One pine, at the center, towered high above its neighbors like a matriarch.

As I walked beyond the huge tree, I spied the bare skeleton of a dead elk, its backbone and remaining rib cage stark against the brown pine needles. The decomposing head, still attached to the spine, sported a massive set of antlers that were six points to the side.

I lifted the head up; the spine remained attached. Whatever had killed the bull had not done so by breaking its neck.

This was an out-of-the-way canyon, far from the trail or highway where I had parked, so I reasoned the bull killer had not been a human. Since the carcass appeared to be about 3 or 4 weeks old, it could not have been left over from last hunting season.

I pondered what could have killed a 1,000-pound animal with fully functional headgear. A bear or lion, probably, although my friend, Billy Lee, says a lion will normally break its prey’s neck. Maybe this was the exception. I ruled out coyotes because the bull had been so huge.

I propped the skull and horns against a remote pine tree in hopes of getting a permit from the Game and Fish boys and then going back in for the prize. Then I noticed that elk tracks abounded everywhere in this remote place. I filed this bit of information away in case I decide to hunt the wilderness one day.

Now came the hard part. I had to climb out of this hole, and the sides of the canyon were steep. I was thankful for the many game trails that crisscrossed the terrain, and made good use of them as I negotiated my way upward.

An old fence crossed the slope about 100 yards below the ridge. As I slithered under the bottom strand of rusty barbed wire, my body was nearly vertical.

Climbing that last 100 yards, I could feel my pulse pounding in my ears. My breathing became more labored. "Am I crazy?" I wondered. For once, I wished for a horse to ride. Of course, the critter’s legs would have to be two feet shorter on one side.

I decided I was definitely short on brain matter. Here I was, a 52-year-old man, alone, without any human having the least notion of where I was at, pushing my body to extremes. Go figure. But I knew I had done this sort of thing before, and likely would again.

After I made it to the top of the ridge and back onto the trail, I immediately encountered a huge pile of lion dung, full of burnished brown elk hair. Was this from the killer of "my" elk? At that moment I hated that lion – and all lions, for that matter. In the next mile I found other piles of lion scat, mostly composed of hair from Hereford cattle.

I could empathize with the rancher who loses livestock to the predators. I could feel his resentment, rage and hopelessness.

But the farther I hiked, the more rational I became. What made me, the hunter, any different from the lion, or any other predator? Am I more noble because I kill the animal and take its meat home and store it in a freezer? We’re doing the same thing, the lion and I, but he eats the meat where the animal falls, and smaller critters benefit from the kill. Even flies and beetles were enjoying the bountiful harvest. The dead bull elk helped to perpetuate the food chain; nothing is wasted in the wilderness.

But even though I knew all of this to be true, I still hated that lion. After all, he is my competitor for the game.

Eventually I came to a spring covered with lush, green grass. I sat there for more than an hour in hopes some wild critter would come to drink and share the moment with me. None did. I decided to make my way back along the three miles of trail.

On the way I found an unusual pair of antlers. They had not been dropped by the same animal and were from different time periods, yet they lay within inches of each other. One antler was a small forked horn; the other a medium four-point. Neither was worth keeping. Farther along the trail I found another, larger and fresher, probably from last year. This one I took home.

I was surprised to find fresh coyote tracks atop my own footprints. They were made by a large animal and stayed with the trail for about a mile. Farther still, I came upon the track of a truly huge lion. Could this be "my killer?" Later, the fresh tracks of a smaller coyote and a large bobcat appeared.

Strangely, all of these critters had used the trail after me. My scent surely had to linger there, yet these animals did not seem the least bit bothered by it.

Deer and elk tracks abounded. Finally, I came upon a herd of four mule deer, two of which were yearlings. The biggest doe’s ear had a huge, gaping hole in it.

Being careful to avoid eye contact, I strolled past the animals at 20 yards’ distance. They never moved. The sight of them was a fitting end to a grand hike in the Gila Wilderness.

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McKnight Canyon in the Gila Wilderness. Photo by Bill Winkley.

When I made the decision to move to Silver City in early 1994, I had many good reasons. I had returned from almost eight years of living in the cultural fascination and beauty of Papua, New Guinea and Fiji and wanted to settle back in my home country in a location that offered both cultural interest and geographical beauty. After looking at several parts of the Western United States, including several small towns in New Mexico, I settled on Silver City.

The wisdom of that decision has been fully validated as I have come to know the area better over the past five years. Truly I have found more and more reasons to live in this magic spot on earth.

The espresso bars, the university and its library, the movie houses and the cultural opportunities are all important to me. The mountains are as stunning and the forest as inviting and magnificent as they were when I brought my toddler children here thirty years ago.

One very large value of life here – one I had not fully anticipated – is the overwhelming abundance of opportunities for hiking in the Gila Wilderness. With the good fortune of meeting some avid hikers and their invitation to join them, I now passionately look forward to frequent hikes as my recreation, my spiritual development and my therapy. There are several I would like to recommend to others planning a visit or a relocation here.

Mineral Creek. Photo by Bill Winkley.

Probably my favorite is the Mineral Creek Hike. This takes the moderate hiker up a series of magnificent canyons, along a usually-running creek that is spotted with excellent swimming holes, and on to the residuals of a town and large mine. During July the wildflowers are profuse and varied. Bird species are abundant, and one should be on the lookout for the occasional snake. Twice we have had encounters with rattlers. However a good pair of boots and long pants have dispelled my fear of snakes, allowing me to focus on the sculptured walls of the canyons, with hues of gold, brown and mauve upon their faces, and the fascinating interplay of rocks and plants.

To get there, one drives west of Silver City on Highway 180 past Glenwood to the small community of Alma. About one block’s distance south of the small store and cafe, there is a dirt road to the east, easily spotted, that leads up a winding road to a corral and parking spot. On the way up that road is Coony’s Tomb, Coony being the founder of the ghost town. The hapless soul was slaughtered by the Apaches and later buried in a large rock tomb on the right side of the road. Watch for his grave, take time to read the marker, and notice the headstones behind it.

Once you have parked, the trail is directly ahead, to the right of the corral. Take shoes that will get you through water as well as over a sometimes steep trail. Pack a lunch and take plenty of water, especially if you are hiking in summer. Mineral Creek is a good day hike, taking anywhere from six to eight hours, allowing time to explore the ghost town site, some of the caves and cellars nearby and the actual mine site about a mile further up the trail. Too, you might want to swim.

Coonyville Munitions Cellar

Another favorite is Gomez Peak, about five minutes from Silver City. Go out Little Walnut Drive to the Gomez Peak Picnic Grounds on the left, just inside the forest. Park your car in the lot at the entrance and the trail leads off right ahead of your car. This hike is a demanding one in that you are vertically challenged a large part of way. Whenever you come to another trail leading upwards, either on your left or right, take it and your reward will be a 360 degree view of the Gila Wilderness, the desert and mountain ranges clear to the Mexican border and virtually the entire town of Silver City, along with the Kneeling Nun and a good view of the Black Range to the East. Depending on your sightseeing needs, this can be a two to four hour hike. Remember to take water and watch for snakes sunning in the trail.

Want another hike, equally beautiful but a good bit more challenging vertically and therefore aerobically? Try Signal Peak, which to my knowledge and experience is snake-free! To reach the trailhead, head out Highway 15 through Pinos Altos about 12 miles to a trail marker sign on the right with the number 742. Park on the left just before the cattleguard and cross the road to begin the hike. The challenge starts immediately, but the rewarding views on your way up and at the top shorten the memory of the ascent. Although the hike up is two and one-half miles to the top, a decision to hike back down on the road from the forestry station on top will find you hiking close to ten miles. On the road you will find Highway 15 about one-half block beyond the cattleguard and your vehicle. We usually retrace our steps. Coming down the way you headed up makes this a good six hour hike, again depending on how much time you take in stopping, looking and having a bite to eat.

For most new to the area, the Black Range looks inviting. There are several excellent day hikes, including the Rabb Park (Trail 747) and the Railroad Canyon (Trail 128)Trails. The view at Emory Pass is stunning and from there, you can hike north or south on Trail No. 79. North is good for cold weather in that there is lots of sun to warm you, while South offers an almost totally shaded summer hike.

The Burros Mountains to the southwest of Silver City paralleling Highway 90 to Lordsburg is criss-crossed with some fine fall and spring hikes. Mountain lions are well-known in these mountains, so avoid taking your small animals, and keep the children close by. Jack’s Peak is a really challenging hike, either from the Continental Divide Trail (Trail 91) on the east of the mountains or from Trail 836 from the West. The views there make the struggle to the top most worthwhile.

Someone said that one could spend a lifetime hiking in the Gila Wilderness. These are a few introductory hikes that will whet your appetite. Serious hikers, either current or intended, should invest in a U.S. Forest Service map and have it laminated. A small backpack, a good water bottle, boots and amphibious shoes or sandals, and a small first-aid kit will round out your needs.

Regardless of your fitness and motivation, there are many hikes that will suit your abilities and interests. Certainly the many Native-American ruins are fascinating, giving one an incredible sense of our connection to the past. The numerous Forest Ranger Stations around the wilderness are staffed with men and women eager to assist you and ensure you have a safe and enjoyable hike. Your good friend, the mighty Gila Wilderness, awaits!

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Gila River Valley. Photo by Carla DeMarco

By It has been written that behind every great personal fortune lies a crime, and there is probably no better illustration of that adage than the cattle empires of the Old West. New Mexico’s territorial days offer a number of such illustrations, but perhaps none better than the story of the Lyons and Campbell Ranch and Cattle Company of the Gila River country and beyond.

Angus Campbell, a Scotsman, came to New Mexico from California after gold-rushing with his parents. He discovered what became the Gosette Mine on Lone Mountain in the late 1870s, established a foundry in Silver City, and went into business with Thomas Lyons, an Englishman who had recently arrived in the Territory from Wisconsin. The partnership prospered, but the two decided that the future was in cattle and in 1880 sold their mine and foundry and began to acquire land and cattle. The "LC," as the company was popularly known, began its climb from modest ranch to cattle empire, and its holdings at the turn of the century stretched from Silver City west to Arizona and from Mule Creek south to Animas – more, it was said, than five hundred thousand acres.

As was so often the case in the cattle-raising regions of the Old West, the aggressive ambitions of the larger ranchmen were thwarted by the presence of small-holders, many of whom held choice grass and water areas. In the fall of 1891, Lyons and Campbell decided it was time to move against the small-holders in the western part of Grant County. Using his influence with Justice of the Peace Thomas J. Clark, Lyons caused the arrest of Peter J. Hall, Sr., Thomas Hall, W. J. Witt, Nealy Jackson, John Spears, John Willson, and Peter Hall, Jr. He also prevailed upon the Justice to have warrants sworn out on Robert Hall, Richard Hall, and Daniel Neal. All of these families held small ranches with a few hundred head of cattle using the same general rangelands as the "LC," and all were charged with cattle theft except Peter Hall, Jr., who was charged with stealing a horse.

Lyons had his foreman, John M. Johnson, deputized by Sheriff James R. Lockhart, and at Lyons’ request, Johnson arrested Peter Hall (father of the other Halls), Peter Hall, Jr., Thomas Hall, and W. T. Witt. The arrests, made in the dead of night, were effected by Johnson and a posse of thirty-four armed men supplied by Thomas Lyons. It was understood that the four men were to be murdered while in Johnson’s charge, two locations having been chosen earlier by Lyons: one at a point on the Gila River about four miles south of the stage crossing on the Mogollon and Silver City road, on the ranch of Justice of the Peace Clark; the second location was in Mangus Canyon, three miles from Clark’s place.

Deputy Johnson’s situation was a precarious one: He already knew of the deaths of Robert and Richard Hall, who had been murdered in Arizona a few days earlier by three men who were now members of his posse; he knew that Lyons, fearing discovery of the bodies by family members who were searching for them, sent several men in a hack to the murder site to obliterate all traces of the crime; and he knew that any recognizable resistance to Lyons’ plan would make him suspect and jeopardize his own life.

Johnson managed to convince Lyons that the posse was too large and too many witnesses to the murders would make secrecy impossible. It was then agreed Johnson would proceed slowly with four other guards and the four prisoners in a hack, while Lyons would return with the others to his headquarters ranch. He would then return with several of his most trusted men, two of whom had murdered the Hall brothers, and this group would overtake Johnson, relieve him of his prisoners, murder them, and dispose of the bodies.

As soon as Lyons and the posse members were out of sight and hearing, Johnson ordered the prisoners to drive through the canyon as fast as the hack would permit. The goal was James K. Metcalf’s place at Mangus Springs. The horses were played out at the end of the canyon, and fresh horses were obtained at the O Ranch at the mouth of the Mangus River. Lyons and his men failed to overtake Johnson, and the prisoners made it safely to jail.

In the subsequent trials, some held in Grant County and some held in Sierra County, twenty-odd indictments were filed against the defendants, and even though the prosecution selected the indictments upon which the defendants would be tried, verdicts of not guilty were returned. John M. Johnson was a witness in the trials, but refused to testify as Lyons wanted him to, thus straining the relations between the two. In fear for his life, Johnson remained silent about the true state of affairs and resigned his position as foreman of the "LC."

Peter Hall, Jr. was indicted for horse theft, and upon advice of council pleaded guilty. He was imprisoned in the State Penitentiary at Santa Fe for a term of five years, effective April 2, 1892. Thomas Lyons’ partner, Angus Campbell, died that year and Lyons became sole owner of the "LC." Public opinion in the area was strongly with the "LC," but as the months passed and people came to understand the true nature of the cattle war they had endured, the realization of murder, assassination, perjury, and subornation of perjury turned the tide of opinion in favor of the Halls and other small-holders.

A movement developed to secure the pardon of young Peter Hall, Jr., and on May 21, 1894, John Johnson gave his deposition in support of a pardon. The deposition outlined the entire "LC" conspiracy to rid the area of small-holders, and was supported in a character reference signed by thirty-seven cattlemen and ranchers from Grant County. Forty-one men signed a petition to the Governor asking for Hall’s release, and his attorney, John J. Bell, informed the governor of his own mishandling of the case. On September 3, 1894, Governor Thornton signed Hall’s complete and full pardon.

The range war was over, and Lyons and the "LC" continued to prosper. Famous guests, large hunting parties, and lavish entertainment made Lyons a byword in the Southwest. He was truly, in a phrase, a Cattle Baron. In 1917, he made a trip to El Paso apparently to close a cattle deal. He arrived the evening of Thursday, May 17, and his brutally beaten, badly mutilated body was found in a ditch the following morning. On June 25, 1917, the El Paso grand jury indicted three men from Fort Worth, Texas in connection with Lyons’ death. The El Paso police believed the murder was the work of hired assassins, but despite trial and punishment, no clear motive for the crime was found. For many people in Grant County, no clear motive was necessary:  the chickens had come home to roost.

In a generation following Lyons’ death, the "LC" was a ghost of its former self. Sold off in small pieces as money was needed, the empire of the Cattle Baron of the Gila disappeared.

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