Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument
For two hours, I slept at the turn-off in complete darkness and when I woke up there was a bear on top of my car. Not really, but if there had been I wouldn’t have been surprised. There was daylight, but all the trees practically blocked out the sun. I drove the winding, billowing mountain road up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. But there are all these dirt roads that branch off the highway and lead to trailheads or campgrounds in the Gila National Forest, and I kept passing them up with the intention of eventually hiking at least one of them. I pulled over at one spot called Pine Flat, which wasn’t exactly a trail or a campground, just a rough-hewn dirt road that leads up a hill to nowhere. I hiked it because my car wouldn’t have made it up all the sharp, rocky terrain. You get the idea that if your sense of direction wasn’t keen and you got off the road even a little bit, it would be very easy to get lost. The pines are just mesmerizing and you end up looking up, mouth open, like a turkey caught in the rain.
—————————————————————-
