Gilo, everyone!

It’s a lovely early autumn day in the Land of Enchantment, and I am headed to a remote corner of New Mexico to visit an ancient community of caves and clay! It was a solid three hours north of El Paso, past the town of Deming, where I watched a mysterious floating cylinder floating above the distant Florida Mountains, and into the Mimbres Valley, mimbres meaning “willows!”

Mimbres was also the name given to the subgroup of Mogollon people who moved into this area between 200 and 1000 AD, most famous for their black and white pottery. As measured from tree rings at the ruins, we now know that eight or ten families moved from pueblos in the valley between 1260 and 1280 AD and built a village right into the side of a cliff! Since 1907, this ancient neighborhood has been known as Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument!

The Mimbres people only stayed here for about twenty years, and many more tribes made this area their home, including the Chiricahua Apache, whose most famous leader, Geronimo, was born near here in 1829!

Yet the earliest settlers left the most enduring remains, and the ancient homes of the Mimbres people were on my exploration agenda this morning. It was time to hit the trail!

The path to the ruins was pretty short, about half a mile up and half a mile back, criss-crossing a creek through some lovely green spots! I was hoping for fall colors, but they probably won’t hit this part of the country for another month. I guess I’ll celebrate Lastleaf another time!

There were five natural caves in the side of this cliff, which gave these settlers a good foundation out of the wind and rain. Here, they built 42 rooms for sleeping, storage, religious practices, and just hanging out! While not nearly as massive as Mesa Verde or Chaco Canyon, there was something much more intimate about entering the small and remote home of these ancient folks, unguided and open to wonder!

The only reason we know about these ruins today is because some folks decided to dodge jury duty in 1876! Rather than go to court, Henry Ailman and four companions decided to head north from Georgetown for “prospecting” purposes and came back with reports of stone ruins in caves! These reports later got backed by anthropologist Adolph Bandelier, and the word was out!

Unfortunately, news of these ruins brought 23 years of looters and vandals, who made off with most of the artifacts that had been here for half a millennium. In response, President Teddy Roosevelt used his powers under the newly enacted Antiquities Act to declare this site a national monument and put it under federal protection in 1907! Now folks can meander through Caves 3, 4, and 5, peering over the walls on fortified ladders, and gaze out on perfectly framed views of the surrounding canyon!

The Gila cliff dwellers were only here for about twenty years before being forced out, probably by the drought conditions that sealed the fate of the other great civilizations of the American Southwest! Like many cliff dwellings, there’s still a lot of mystery surrounding this site that may never be solved, but at least now, we no longer write them off as simply having disappeared. Their artwork links them to the modern Hopi of Arizona and Zuni of New Mexico, who are still very much alive and continuing their ancient traditions!

Though the ruins trail was all too brief, there are lots of other reasons to visit Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. Had I not needed to hurry back to El Paso before sunset, I could have taken a dip in the Jordan Hot Springs, but they’re home to a brain bug that causes meningitis if you get it in your nose or mouth. So in this case, I was glad to be on solid road again heading south to the Lone Star State!

Gil- today, gone tomorrow!

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More 2018 Adventures

Total Ground Covered: 596.0 mi (959.2 km)

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