It is 100 years since the US government created the world's first protected wilderness, at the prompting of a visionary conservationist, Aldo Leopold. Encompassing some 1,190 square miles of forested mountains and desert canyons in southern New Mexico, the Gila Wilderness is not a visitor-friendly national park, said Elaine Glusac in The New York Times, but a forbidding natural region, remote and resistant to entry.
Indeed, few places in the US are so well guarded against the selfie-seeking crowds. There are no roads or "artificial trails" – an absence that has led to "countless tales of lost hikers, encounters with poison oak and arduous river crossings". And the wilderness itself lies within a larger conservation area, the 5,196 square mile Gila National Forest, where the only roads are steep and winding, making access yet more difficult.
I stayed in Silver City, on the edge of the National Forest, which makes a good base for exploring. From there, it's a 90-minute drive to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. A complex of 40 rooms built into caves high up on some "amber-hued" cliffs, it was created by a group of hunter-gatherers, the Mogollon people, in the 13th century. Today, it is the area's "top attraction", along with the many pictographs they drew on a nearby rock wall – abstract figures and symbols whose meaning is "lost to time". The cliff dwellings stand at a good entry point into the wilderness – if you can ford the Gila River. On my visit, it was in spate, and I gave up.
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The next day, however, I entered the wilderness at Rocky Canyon, on horseback, in the company of two Forest Service employees. Exploring for eight hours, we passed through a remarkable range of habitats – from desert to alpine – and saw "intriguing" caves, sculptural stacks of boulders, and backcountry hot springs. And while none of the area's bears, wolves or mountain lions put in an appearance, I spotted many "smaller wonders", including Montezuma quail, with their "distinct polka-dot breasts".
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