Tuesday June 4 2024

Tuesday June 4

Today we travelled north for almost 2 hours on a day trip to Gila Wilderness. This national park is known for the ancient cliff dwellings within the park. Gila Wilderness is huge and home to 100s of miles of hiking trails as well as the cliff dwellings.

We started at the visitors center and decided to do the cliff dwellings first. We were so impressed with the dwellings, nestled under the overhanging cliff walls with their rudimentary structures incorporated into the cliff faces. Some of the buildings were open for us to explore and gave us an appreciation for how these ancient peoples lived their lives in harmony with the resources around them.

Later we did a 6km out and back following a creek bed – this one actually had water in it! We had to make several stream crossings so our feet and boots got wet, but it was refreshing and our boots dried quickly in the desert heat and lack of humidity.

Our final stop in the park was to look at some pictographs near the Lower Scorpion campground.

Gila Wilderness cliff dwellings

Cliff dwelling path

The shoe dwelling

Nice view

Where do the children play?

A bit of stream fording

Landscape at City of Rocks

Table Mountain at sunset
City of Rocks