Silver City, New Mexico

 

Looking southwest down Highway 90, the road connecting Silver City to Lordsburg. Desert mountain ranges stretch southward through New Mexico's "bootheel" and into Mexico, waiting to be explored. 

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Ellen and I moved from Laramie to Silver City, New Mexico in August (2023). After over 40 years in Wyoming, I never thought I’d leave, but once the notion of a new geography got a toe in the door, it grew into a plan and culminated in a summer of packing, house-selling, and Uhaul-driving. Once moved, we weren’t in Silver City for long before we left to spend October in Utah (more on that later), so we are only now settling into our new home for the “winter.”

 

At about 6,000’ in the foothills of the Gila National Forest, Silver City has winter, but it’s shorter than Wyoming’s and maybe less windy (we’ll see). It snows, but not a lot, and the snow doesn’t stay around too long (we’re told). We’ll miss the skiing, but my knees are happier hiking, and the diversity of trails, plants, and animals in this ecotone between deserts and mountains is remarkable. We miss our Wyoming and Colorado friends more than the skiing, but a few of them already live here having migrated south before us, and we hope others will visit.

 

It's invigorating to make a new home in an unfamiliar place. The Gila National Forest, with over 3 million acres of mountains and canyons and the first Wilderness Area in the U.S., is on our doorstep. It’s laced with 2,000 miles of trails, including part of the Continental Divide Trail that passes within a few miles of our new house on its way north, eventually crossing Wyoming before reaching Canada. South of Silver City, the Chihuahuan Desert extends through the New Mexico “bootheel” and into Old Mexico, with innumerable mountain ranges waiting to be explored. The Sonoran Desert (saguaros!) is not far to the southwest; White Sands National Park, the Organ Mountains, and West Texas are not far to the southeast. 

 

With the upheaval of moving, I haven’t taken many photographs yet, but I’ll post a few below with some first impressions of Silver City and SW New Mexico. I’m looking forward to more focused (no pun) photography missions in the months and years to come.

Ellen on one of our early hikes here, off-trail, approaching the summit of the north Twin Sister Peak which overlooks Silver City. Shortly before taking this picture, I was buzzed by a rattler. Shortly after taking it, Ellen was buzzed by a different rattler. We aren't in Laramie anymore! Since our heads were higher than the summit, we decided to turn back. That counts, right? 

Silver City is thick with Mimbres archaeology, including settlements, rock art, and artifacts. The Mimbres were well aware of rattlesnakes too, but they're famous for their exquisite pottery (see below). We joined the local archaeological society (GCAS) and look forward to field trips and talks.

A Mimbres bowl featuring a turkey morphing into a rattlesnake. This is housed in the museum at the Western New Mexico University campus in Silver City. Unfortunately, many (most?) Mimbres sites have been looted, so many artifacts lack provenience (information about their origin). 

Mimbres grinding holes south of Silver City. These are deeper and more vertically-sided than the grooves we often see in SE Utah. Perhaps the Mimbres were grinding different seeds (mesquite?) than the corn that was commonly ground in Utah?

More recently, Apaches dominated SW New Mexico, and they also left pictographs. The Apaches tried to hold onto their land, particularly in the late 1800s when mining for precious metals drew a rush of newcomers to the Gila country. David Roberts' book, "Once They Moved Like the Wind: Cochise, Geronimo, and the Apache Wars", tells the story well, and is recommended even if you don't live here.

Speaking of mining, Silver City is adjacent to enormous open-pit copper mines, and the mountains are riddled with small prospects (and ghost towns) from the days of silver and gold mining. This image shows a portion of the Santa Rita mine east of town. The Tyrone mine, also huge, is southwest of Silver City. 

Before industrial mining, individual prospectors tried to make their fortunes in the Gila. This adit is near the Cooney mine, named for a soldier who found silver in Mineral Creek while on patrol in 1870. After leaving the army, he successfully mined in the area until he was killed by Apaches and interred inside a nearby boulder, hollowed out for that purpose by family and friends. "Black Range Tales," by James McKenna, paints a vivid picture of mining towns in the late 1800s. 

A cemetery near the Santa Rita mine east of Silver City.

Another cemetery in the Lower Mimbres Valley, SE of Silver City. 

There are interesting towns nearby. Lordsburg is about 50 miles SW of Silver City. Motel Drive in Lordsburg is lined with old motels, many abandoned.

Deming, about 50 miles to the SE, is bigger and more prosperous than Lordsburg. North of Deming in the desert I ran across this less than prosperous old mining facility (I think). 

But the mines, abandoned motels, and cemeteries aren't why we moved. Instead, it was the diversity of hiking, biking, flora, and fauna that drew us here. The landscape ranges from sparse Chihuahuan desert, to pine forests and lush riparian zones where streams flow out of the mountains. Here Ellen enjoys fall colors along Mineral Creek.

Looking south from the Mimbres Valley to Cooke's Peak (the pointy one), a prominent landmark between Silver City and Deming. We look forward to climbing it now that it's cooled down. 

We've never been birders, but SW New Mexico and Southern Arizona are hotspots, and we're trying to learn. Here, a Swainson's Hawk perches on a yucca near New Mexico's City of Rocks between Silver City and Deming. The Chiricahua Mountains, less than 2 hours southwest of Silver City, attract birders from all over the world. 

We're learning new plants too. Agaves, though not new to us, are a favorite, even when they are past their prime. 

Riparian areas are surprisingly lush. This sumac lit up our recent hike into Mineral Creek.

Silver City is not a rock climbing destination, but there is bouldering at City of Rocks (New Mexico, not Idaho) just south of here and potential for routes in canyons near town (yet to be explored). Truth or Consequences has established climbing, Tucson is less than three hours away as is Hueco Tanks, and there are many other areas within easy weekend distance. Here our friends Bret and Judy Ruckman boulder at the City of Rocks. 

An unclimbed spire in the Gila, or is that a mine adit two-thirds of the way up?

And, it's beautiful here. Another fall shot from Mineral Creek.

A sycamore tree, also in Mineral Creek.

And finally, a shot from a recent (mid-November) walk along the Gila River not far west of Silver City. We've barely begun to scratch the surface.

Desert Packrafting: Escalante, San Juan, and San Rafael Rivers

Our boats beached to walk to a rock art panel on the San Juan River.

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For much of my life, desert rivers have been obstacles or sources of silty water, difficult to cross and hard to filter. The small ones, frigid in the spring, could be waded. Big ones were hiked along, often arduously, or approached, camped beside, and left behind to return the way you came. They are also beautiful green corridors through arid landscapes, lined with cottonwoods and punctuated by rock art galleries and ruins. Sitting on a canyon rim in the hot sun, cliffed-out high above an impossibly green river bottom, you ache to be down in the cool shade.  

Packrafts transform rivers from barriers into people-movers. This spring while drifting along on the San Juan several days into a week-long float, I realized how relaxed I felt, deep in the canyon and far from cell coverage, watching one sandstone formation dip into the river to reveal the younger one above it as we traveled downstream. It was like a days-long sigh of relief.

 

Kevin Fedarko in his book, The Emerald Mile, about boating in the Grand Canyon, wrote:

“To float, to drift, savoring the pulse of the river on its odyssey through the canyon, and above all, to postpone the unwelcome and distinctly unpleasant moment when one is forced to reemerge and reenter the world beyond the rim—that is the paramount goal.”

Our Alpacka Explorers, weighing about 7 pounds, plus the paddles, PFDs (life vests), and dry bags, all added to standard backpacking gear, make for heavy packs. We haven’t been ambitious about carrying our rafts very far, instead opting for short approaches. If one is willing to carry the gear, even more terrain opens. Either way, once on the water, you spend your days watching the scenery scroll by. If it’s hot, you swim. If it’s cold, you try not to. Camps are often idyllic with sandy beaches, shade, and side-canyons to explore.

I’ve written before about our first two packraft trips (Oregon’s John Day River and Boquillas Canyon on the Rio Grande) but during the last two spring boating seasons (2022 and 2023), we’ve added the Escalante, San Juan, and San Rafael to our resumes. All of these are exceptional trips in different ways, and there is no shortage of YouTube videos and trip reports, so I won’t add to that pantheon, but I’ll share a few photos and some basic logistics.

Left to Right: Larry Scritchfield, Brian Collins, Ellen, and me, savoring the wind and our heavy packs at the Egypt Trailhead as we set out to Fence Canyon where we put onto the Escalante in April, 2022.

Rigging boats for the Escalante at the Fence Canyon put-in.

Branches and clear water in Neon Canyon during a side hike from the Escalante.

Ellen and Brian on the Escalante, more a creek than a river below Fence Canyon at 6-10 cfs.

Larry during one of many low water boat drags on the Escalante.

Ellen enjoying water stained Escalante cliffs.

Ellen in one of the many small rapids on the Escalante. The river at low water was very busy--nothing especially hard, but requiring constant route finding to avoid hanging up on rocks.

The spectacular Kachina Panel on the San Juan River, less than a day's float from the Sand Island put-in. We ran the San Juan in early April 2023.

Larry Scritchfield and Jane Addis eating lunch at the Kachina Panel.

Spring was late coming to the desert this year, and our first days on the San Juan were cold. This tree knew better than to leaf out.

An arrowhead, left where I found it. The San Juan between Sand Island and Mexican Hat is rich with archaeology. 

Ellen and Bay Roberts at the River House ruin on the San Juan.

An otter accompanied us downriver for a quite a while before climbing onto the shore and running back upstream. We wondered if it was just curious or chaperoning us away from its family.

Ellen in Government Rapid, one of a couple of Class 3 drops on the river. 

The view upstream from our last camp at the mouth of Oljeto Wash. Below Slickhorn Canyon, the river is placid. It was once subsumed by Lake Powell, but has reemerged from the shrinking reservoir.

The San Rafael River in May 2023 at about 150 cfs when we ran it. It later came up to 1,000 before dropping. 

Claret Cup Cactus in the San Rafael Swell.

Ellen and Bay Roberts on the San Rafael.

Ellen and Bay eating lunch in Virgin Springs Canyon on the San Rafael.

Logistics

 

Escalante

 

Permits: Required backcountry permit is easily obtained from the Ranger Station in Escalante on your arrival (no lottery, etc.).

Recommended water level: We ran this section when the river was peaking at 6 cfs and it was often lower than that, which was marginal but obviously doable. The recommended water level is at least 50 cfs, but people run it at 2 cfs. The low water made the trip a little more arduous but it was still great.

Shuttle: Our shuttle was from the Egypt Trailhead to the 40-mile Ridge Trailhead. Both are accessed from the Hole in the Rock Road outside of Escalante, which is usually ok for passenger cars (but it can get rough or muddy depending on weather). The spur roads into Egypt and 40-mile Ridge require some clearance and there's sand on the 40-mile Ridge road. We were fine with a Subaru and an AWD van. The shuttle is tedious and takes a couple of hours if I remember correctly.

River info: If there’s enough water, you can put in at the Highway 12 bridge near Escalante, but at lower water Fence Canyon is the recommended put in. We started at Fence and took out at Coyote Gulch where we hiked out via the crack in the wall (strenuous hike up a dune but technically easy). Some people float all the way to Lake Powell and get picked up there. The main challenge for us was the low water. We did a lot of butt-scooting and some dragging of boats. Rapids were easy at low water but hard to get through without hanging up. There are two mandatory portages.

Online info: American Packrafting Association, Bearfoot Theory blog, National Park Service.

 

San Juan

 

Permits: Required. You can enter the lottery for trip dates between April 15 and July 15 at recreation.gov. For earlier trips, you don’t have to enter the lottery, but you must apply for a permit starting December 1. That’s what we did, and we got a permit, but it was cold for the first few days in April. Later dates are likely to have more water and warmer temperatures.

Recommended water level: >500 cfs. When we were on the river, it was running about 1,000 cfs which was a nice level. 

Shuttle: We paid for the shuttle using Wild Expeditions in Bluff. They drove our van to Clay Hills and left it there for us. Cost was about $250.

River info: The San Juan is usually boated either from Sand Island to Mexican Hat or from Sand Island all the way to Clay Hills. We took out at Clay Hills. The best archaeology is before Mexican Hat, so plan to spend more time on that section if you can. Also, the left bank of the river is on Navajo lands, and if you want to hike there, you need a special permit (recommended). Chinle Wash is particularly interesting. Call the Navajo Parks and Recreation Department in Window Rock at 928-871-6647.

Online Info: BLM, Dan Ransom video, Guidebook.

 

San Rafael

 

Permits: None required.

Recommended water level: >100 cfs (we ran it at 150 and it was great). They say over 1,000 is not recommended, but I don’t know why not.

Shuttle: Put in is at Fuller Bottom and take out is just upstream from the bridge at the Swinging Bridge Campground. Shuttle by car takes a half-hour or so. Some people do a bicycle shuttle.

River info: Mellow, fun river with no significant rapids (just riffles). Nice side canyon hikes with ruins and rock art. Most do this as a one-day trip, but it can be floated as an overnight. There are lots of nice campsites at side canyons. 

Online info: Bearfoot Theory blog, Road Trip Ryan, Zachary Kenney blog.

Attic Life

My dad and grandmother "Out West" probably in the late 1930s or very early 1940's. His family lived in Dearborn, Michigan but loved to visit the Tetons.

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Last summer, while helping move my mother from the Chesapeake Bay to an assisted living community in Austin, Texas near my sister, my three siblings and I sat in my parents' sunroom sorting pictures and letters before the house was sold. It was painful to cull family photos, and there were thousands of them. Letters were even worse.

My sister, Kim, and me with my Grandfather, Oscar McCall, at his furniture store in Enterprise Alabama. 1960s.

Generations of photographs ended up in my parents’ attic, where it was too hot in the Virginia summer to work, so we hauled decaying bins downstairs and sat, each of us with boxes for keepers and garbage bags for tossers. At the end of summer, the house sold, we left Virginia with photos of ourselves and our kids. I became the keeper of the family archive because I had enough room in the back of my Subaru.

My great-uncle Henry Driese (3rd from left) was a railroad engineer for the Pere Marquette Railway in Michigan. He died long before I was born, but my grandfather (also Ken) worked for the railroad too, and my father (Ed) loved trains all of his life. This is one of many prints in a box that I brought back to Wyoming with me.

This summer, Ellen and I are tackling our own attic, sorting and tossing, preparing to move to New Mexico after over twenty years in our Laramie house. Like my parents, we’ve accumulated extended family histories and our own: photos of Bei growing up, letters from friends and family, journals, artwork, climbing magazines, books, diplomas, annotated calendars.

Ellen and Bei in Baja, California around 2003.

Me and Bei at the same spot.

In Sally Mann’s autobiography, “Hold Still,” she begins with boxes in her own attic, lamenting:

“They had come to my attic in stages—first from Larry’s parents and grandparents and then from my father and mother—and they had not been opened since the deaths that necessitated boxing up a life. In them was all that remained in the world of these people, their entire lives crammed into boxes that would barely hold a twelve-pack.” 

-Sally Mann from Hold Still

Years ago, Ellen received a box in the mail from the nuns who had cared for her Uncle Bob in his later years. It’s been in our attic ever since, the last belongings of a man who lived a full life, married, worked for Boeing, but never had kids. By the time he died in his nineties, he had no other family, and Ellen had stayed in touch, so she became the keeper of his things and the carrier of that burden. 

A photo from Uncle Bob's box, carefully labeled on the back as the "interior view of C-97 mockup taken April 17, 1945." Back in those days, the entire cabin was first class! We've come so far.

Part of what we are saving for Bei are photographs and documents from before she was old enough to form lifelong memories—her early childhood, the year spent in China when she was five, her adoption. I’m certain that some of her “memories” come directly from these images rather than from actual experience. 

“Photography would seem to preserve our past and make it invulnerable to the distortions of repeated memorial superimpositions, but I think that is a fallacy: photographs supplant and corrupt the past, all while creating their own memories. As I held my childhood pictures in my hands, in the tenderness of my “remembering,” I also knew that with each photograph I was forgetting. --Sally Mann from Hold Still

Our memories can be as much formed by photographs as captured by them, and photos are an interpretation by the photographer rather than perfect rendition of a moment. Discarding an old photo is like erasing a memory.

Bei with Naxi men in Baisha, Yunnan when we lived in China. She was probably 4 when this was taken and I'm sure she doesn't remember that day except as it is captured in this image.

Recently, I sorted a banker’s box densely packed with letters from old friends spanning my life from college well into the recent past. Despite being dirtbags in our 20s and 30s, we were prolific writers, before emails and texts replaced letters and post cards. In those days, I was immersed in rock climbing culture, and the letters capture adventures with friends in Yosemite, Indian Creek, Europe, Thailand, and a hundred other places. They also remind me of how bonded we were--sleeping on each other’s floors, lamenting failed romances, and reveling in our freedom before dispersing in our 40s. I recycled some of the letters and kept others. They'll mean little to Bei and I’ll be unlikely to read them again once they're back in boxes in whatever attic we own next. But throwing them away felt like excising part of my life.

An enthusiastic letter from Larry Scritchfield back when we were getting ready to attempt to climb The Zodiac on El Capitan (we got stormed off 5 pitches up). 

The late David Roberts, in his book about his audacious ascent of Mt. Huntington in Alaska as a young man in the 1960s, wrote:

“A man’s best moments seem to go by before he notices them; and he spends a large part of his life reaching back for them, like a runner for a baton that will never come. In disappointment, he grows nostalgic; and nostalgia inevitably blurs the memory of the immediate thrill, which, simply because it had to be instantaneous, could not have lasted.” David Roberts from The Mountain of My Fear 

On El Capitan, Yosemite. 

There’s more to it for me than nostalgia, and I’m far from disappointed with the path I’ve taken, but fear of mortality gnaws a little as I look back at youth from my mid-60s. Milan Kundera wrote: 

“To be mortal is the most basic human experience, and yet man has never been able to accept it, grasp it, and behave accordingly.” -from Immortality

"Behaving accordingly" might be exhausting, and maybe our photographs, letters, and other of life’s flotsam, carefully stored in our attics, is an effort to be just a little immortal, remembered for a while longer than we would be without that evidence that we were here. 

 

Jane Shilling, writing for The Daily Mail while decluttering uncertainly after her son left for college observed: 

“When you write letters, either by email or on paper, you write, without knowing it, your life story, and one rarely emerges well from the account. But it is the human condition to be ridiculous and I may as well embrace it...Cupboard space is precious in a house as small as mine. But so are memories. And just at the moment, I can’t decide which I need more.” 

Cupboard space and memories are precious in our house too, so we’re taking the middle path with our things, recycling some and keeping others. Maybe if we leave our children just enough (if they choose to open the boxes) to learn about what we were like before we were their parents but not enough to overwhelm their attics, we’ve done the best we can.