3 Best Sights in Gila National Forest, Southwestern New Mexico

At Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument the mystery of the Mogollon (muh-gee-yohn) people's short-lived occupation of the deeply recessed caves high above the canyon floor may never be resolved. But the finely detailed stone dwellings they left behind stand in silent testimony to the challenges as well as the beauty of the surrounding Gila Wilderness. Built and inhabited for a span of barely two generations, from 1280 to the early 1300s AD, its 42 rooms are tucked into six natural caves that are reached via a rugged one-mile loop trail that ascends 180 feet from the trail head. Constructed from the same pale volcanic stone as the cliffs themselves, the rooms are all but camouflaged until you are about a half-mile along the trail. You can contemplate, from a rare close-up vantage point, the keyhole doorways that punctuate the dwelling walls and gaze out upon a ponderosa pine- and cottonwood-forested terrain that looks much like the one the Mogollon people inhabited seven centuries ago. The wealth of pottery, yucca sandals, tools, and other artifacts buried here were picked clean by the late 1800s—dispersed to private collectors. But the visitor center has a small museum with books and other materials about the wilderness, its trails, and the Mogollon. It's a 2-mile drive from the visitor center to the Dwellings trail head (and other nearby trails); there are interesting pictographs to be seen on the wheelchair-accessible Trail to the Past.

Allow a good 2 hours from Silver City to the Cliff Dwellings via NM 15 or via NM 35; though longer in mileage, the NM 35 route is an easier ride.

If you can spare the time, spend the night at one of the mountain inns close to the dwellings to maximize your time in the park.

The Gila, as it's called, covers 3.3 million acres—that's 65 mi by 100 mi—and was the first land in the nation to be set aside as a protected "wilderness" by the U.S. Forest Service back in 1924. The area is vast and continues to feel like a great, relatively undiscovered treasure. You are unlikely to come across any crowds, even in peak summer months. Whether you're backpacking or doing day hikes, you have 1,500 mi of incredibly diverse trails to explore. Open camping is permitted throughout the forest, although there are 18 developed campgrounds (all with toilets and seven with potable water). The Gila is an outdoors-lover's paradise: with seemingly endless trails to explore on mountain bikes, white-water rafting (the season usually starts in April), and fishing in rivers, lakes (three of them), and streams. Thirty percent of the forest is closed to vehicular traffic entirely, but the rest is open for touring. The Trail of the Mountain Spirits Scenic Byway (also referred to as the Inner Loop Scenic Drive) snakes through 75 miles of some of the most gorgeous and scenic forest in the wilderness. The roads are paved but the sharp, narrow, and steep turns make it inadvisable for large RVs. From Silver City, take NM 15 north to Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. From the monument backtrack on NM 15 to NM 35 heading southeast to NM 152, which leads west back to Silver City.

U.S. 180 leads northwest about 50 mi from Silver City to Glenwood and Whitewater Canyon—the gateway to the western reaches of the Gila. Return to U.S. 180, and go north 3 miles (just before the very little town of Alma, where you can get some snacks at the Alma Grill or Trading Post), and turn east onto NM 159. Your rewarding destination, about 45 minutes in, on a sometimes one-lane dirt road, is Mogollon (muh-gee-yohn). The gold-mining town, established in the 1880s, was a ghost town for many years but has been revived in the last few decades by a dozen or so residents who live there year-round. A small museum, an antique shop, and a café operate on the weekends. Book a stay at the Silver Creek Inn (www.silvercreekinn.com) and you can spend the weekend exploring this interesting relic of the American West, as well as the breathtaking, and huge, Gila National Forest bordering it.