Hiking the Gila National Forest, Trail 154 - Signal Peak Road

You would never guess driving through southern New Mexico on I-10 that just an hour north of Deming lies 3.3 million acres of pristine wilderness known as the Gila National Forest/Gila Wilderness (pronounced Hee-luh).

I love hiking in the Gila National Forest. There are so many trails, and so many scenic drives you can go on – it would literally take you a lifetime to see half of what it has to offer! Another cool thing about this area is the Gila River, which is the last unaltered river in New Mexico. This means that, unlike every other river in the state, the Gila River has not been dammed or diverted for the needs of man. It lies exactly as it has for hundreds of years!

But enough with the history lesson. The topic of this post is a trail that I hiked on yesterday, marked #154 or also Signal Peak Road. I really enjoyed this hike. It’s been raining consistently for a couple of months now, which means there were a ton of wildflowers!

Update: Even though this road is also known as Signal Peak Rd, it’s not marked as such! If you follow this road (either by hiking or driving) it will take you to a trailhead that leads to Signal Peak as well as the Continental Divide Trail. I personally found it fulfilling just to hike this road, but it would be cool one day to drive up the whole road and hike just the trail to Signal Peak. It’s up to you! I’m not sure how long the road is but it’s probably not one you want to hike from the beginning to the end on. The couple of times we went we drove up a short ways before we got out and hiked.

(Click here to see what else there is to do in Silver City, NM!)

Difficulty:

Easy – Moderate

Directions:

From Silver City, get on HWY-15 heading North toward the Pinos Altos. When you get to the outskirts of Pinos Altos, the road will fork, and you will stay right/straight. Continue straight on this road (it’s really more winding than straight 😉 ) About 6 miles past Bear Creek Cabins in Pinos Altos, you should be close to the turn-off. It’s on the right side and is labeled 154. If you turn right onto this little road, you will find a parking area on your left almost immediately.

The trail that we followed is a gravel road. This road is excellent for hiking but would be just as good for Jeeping, 4-wheeling, or driving through in a high clearance (but preferably 4×4) vehicle. It would also make for a great mountain biking trail!

Gila National Forest, Trail 154 — The trail follows a creek almost the whole way!

One of the things I love about the Gila is that it’s not crowded. When you go hiking in Colorado, you very often are one of many people trying to enjoy nature. We saw one car leaving right as we started and never saw another soul the entire time. It made for a very peaceful hike!

There are many side trails from the main gravel path. At one point we took a side trail, but it eventually winded us back up to the gravel path. I’m pretty sure you could spend all day up here exploring the area! From what we observed, there were many creeks in this area, and you could always hear it’s bubbling sound as you hiked.

You’ll notice in the following pictures that the trees are badly burned. There were some forest fires here a few years back, but the grass and wildflowers were going crazy in the burned area! We still thought it was really beautiful.

Gila National Forest Rd #154 — Eventually, the burned area cleared up for for a little ways!

I definitely recommend this hike. I thought it was beautiful – even the burned part. You can see mountains as far as the eye can see, and walking next to a flowing creek is definitely a plus as well!