Cliff Dwellings

Two weekends ago we participated in a BSC community retreat in Silver City, NM.  Silver City is in southwestern New Mexico and is right outside of the Gila National Forest.  It was a really cute town with an old main street and a lot of small local stores.   The best part however was when we left Silver City we drove into the national forest and visited the cliff dwellings.  First, the Gila wilderness was absolutely breath taking.  As we drove through it I felt a deep sense of home.  The high desert forest was very similar to Eastern Oregon with the mix of ponderosa pine, juniper, yarrow, and sagebrush, but here there is also multiple times of cacti, a hint of red, and the surprising steep-sided canyons that seemed to just pop-up out of nowhere.  The elevation just during our drive to the cliff dwellings changed from 6,000 feet to 7,500 feet probably three or four times - my ears were not happy!

The Cliff Dwellings however, were absolutely amazing.  The terrain was beautiful but the history of the area was what was so incredible.  We saw preserved corn cobs sitting in one of the dwellings that were 700 years old - crazy!  The dwellings are built in the side of canyon walls - dug out of the side by the Mogollon people.  There are five caves but only  three of them were opened to the public when we visited.  Supposedly, the Mogollon lived there between 1275 - 1310 C.E, which is only 35 years - at the time one generation.  This seemed kind of crazy to me, but the park ranger said that this was normal of the cliff dwellers and pueblo people of the time. The Mogollon are believed to be one of the ancestral peoples of the Pueblo and Hopi Indians.  I guess Hopi oral tradition says migrations occurred due to cycles of beliefs and in response to changing climates.

 Anyway, it was a neat experience and one I would love to repeat.  I know Tucker and I will defiantly be going back to the national forest - neither of us could get enough.  We want to go back to go camping and bike riding.  I have to acclimate to the elevation before I take on that challenge but it will happen! There are more cliff dwellings in northern New Mexico and Colorado so it would be neat to go to see how they compare.

700 year old corn cobs