-
Gila National Forest: Ben Lilly Memorial & its Secret Waterfall
Hello friends! Sorry that it’s been a long time! It turns out that working graveyard shifts takes some getting used to! (i.e. my brain has been completely and utterly fried…for a month.) I was looking through some pics today while feeding my Shutterfly addiction and I came across something I meant to post ages ago! Ben Lilly Memorial is an interesting spot in the Gila National Forest. It’s not a hike, it’s a pile of natural rocks that’s earned the designation of a Memorial to the man who was known as “the last mountain man in the Southwest”. If you climb atop this giant pile of rocks you are rewarded…
-
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…
