Camping by the Gila River

After Van Morrison was out of the shop with new brakes, new shocks, and new tires, we ate one more time at the Jalisco Cafe before leaving Silver City.  We drove north on highway 15, called the Trail of the Mountain Spirits, and found a great camping spot at the Grapevine Campground (a Forest Service free campground) about 4 or 5 miles south of the Gila Cliff Dwellings along the east fork of the Gila River.  We had the river running right beside our camp with a small rapids there, so our camp was filled with soothing water noise.  We camped there five days, then on the sixth day—Dave’s 70th birthday—we drove on to the cliff dwellings monument, hiked up to the dwellings and toured through them with a ranger, stopped at the Visitor Center, refilled our water jugs, then drove 42 miles back down to Silver City so that Dave could have a late birthday lunch at the Jalisco Cafe, complete with mango margaritas and crème brûlée for dessert.

One of the highlights of the hike up to the dwellings was seeing a Javalina (peccary) very near the trail.  We think we were visited by a javalina one night at the Grapevine Campground.  Javalinas like riparian habitat, they are pretty hairy, and they stink.  Dave said he woke up one night at that camp and smelled something gross outside— his description was that it smelled like an incredibly dirty, wet, musty rug.  We found clumps of course brown hair beside big rocks in our camp area.  It was either a javalina or a bear.  Info we got at the visitor center indicate it was probably a javalina, as they are pretty common in that area.

Apparently this upper portion of the Trail of the Mountain Spirits is part of the Continental Divide Trail.  We see multiple young hikers along the side of the road.  these folks have begun at the Mexican border and are walking the trail all the way to Canada.  It will take them a few months.

After lunch, we took a nap ( that’s the effect of margaritas on old folks) then camped south  of town on Redrock Road where we had been a couple of weeks before.  In the morning we will go back to Silver City for Covid booster shots at CVS, then back up to our campsite along the Gila River for a few more days.  The trees are leafing out beautifully with a lovely “spring green” color.  We spotted a bright red cardinal on a branch over the river on two different mornings, and a tall ponderosa pine near us was the nightly roosting spot for nine vultures.