The Gila National Forest

Nature provides plentiful variety in the , located in southwest New Mexico. The United States Congress designated the Gila Wilderness in 1964 and it now contains over 3,300,000 acres and is managed by making it the sixth largest National Forest in the continental United States.

The Gila contains more publicly owned land than any other national forest outside the state of Alaska. The Gila National Forest is the largest wilderness in the southwestern United States. This brilliant representative of pristine mountains, forests, range land and protected desert was in fact, the first designated wilderness area in the United States. Rolling hills leading to high mesas and deep canyons, distinguish the eastern portions of the Gila Wilderness as do pinion and juniper woodland as well as a few grassland areas. This completely unspoiled landscape is an outdoor lover’s refuge with its deep canyons featuring desert agave vegetation, hot springs, 400 miles of fishing streams.

Upper slopes of the Gila contain super thick forests of spruce and fir… In 1924, Congress authorized the U.S. Forest Service to establish the wilderness, due to the persistent lobbying efforts of Aldo Leopold, a former U.S. Forest Service employee who devoted most of his adult life to preserving our country’s untamed forests for future generations to savor.

You can reach the Gila Wilderness by taking State Highway 90 from LordsburgNew Mexico (Interstate 10) — through the historic mining towns of and continuing north into the national forest itself.

The Gila Wilderness is one of the few places left in the United States where one can still serve witness to untouched nature… On a typical day in the Gila Wilderness, you might very well find a herd of pronghorn grazing on the rich grassland… Observe a desert tortoise going about his business the way he has for millions of years… Freezing in your tracks while javelina scurry along a migration trail… Feeling the natural soothing heat of a hot spring flowing into the river…

It’s all here in the Gila Wilderness…

Chiricahua Apache people believe these lands were set in prefect foundation specifically for the Chiricahua. Chiricahua Apaches were created here and from time immemorial have been present here. Chiricahua Apache predate all other cultures here in the Gila region, others attempted to settle, unsuccessfully.

The Mogollon, an ancient culture that once thrived in the Gila Wilderness, also left their imprint, then passed on, probably around 1300 A.D. They were very astute architects and builders… In the heart of the Gila National Forest, a one-mile loop up a shady canyon leads YOU, the modern-day visitor, up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. Here,YOU will gaze and examine a forty-two room collection of homes which the Mogollon people constructed in five spacious sandstone caves.

Also talented pottery makers, the Mogollon apparently shared this art with the Mimbres people, who lived in the fertile river valleys below their cliff dwelling neighbors. The Mimbreno or WILLOW PEOPLE left their own legacy here and can still be seen in the remarkable black-on-white ceramic pottery recovered from Mimbres ruins.

By the time the first Spaniard set foot in southwest New Mexico, the Mogollons and Mimbrenos had vanished. Still, the Apaches inhabited the area and called it home. Led by such famous Apaches as Cochise and Geronimo, the Apaches retreated to a remote stronghold into the rugged forests and mountains of the Gila Wilderness where the U.S. Army chased them for years.

"This is Apache land, this has always been Apache land." — Geronimo, an Apache legend

“There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot.” — Aldo Leopold