Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument
National Monument · Silver City, New Mexico
Around 1280 a group of Mogollon people moved into five natural caves in the cliff above the West Fork of the Gila and built about forty rooms inside them, using stone, mortar and timber that is still in place. They farmed the canyon bottom, lived there for perhaps a single generation, and left by about 1300 for reasons nobody has settled. What makes this site unusual among cliff dwellings is that you go inside: a one-mile loop climbs 180 feet up the canyon wall, crosses into the alcoves and lets you walk through the rooms rather than look at them from a distance. Original roof timbers survive overhead and soot from cooking fires is still on the ceilings. The monument sits at the end of NM 15, a spectacular 44-mile road from Silver City that takes about two hours each way, surrounded by the Gila Wilderness on every side. The trailhead closes in the afternoon, so a late start means driving four hours for a locked gate, and there is no fuel and no phone signal at the road end.
26 Jim Bradford Trail, Silver City, New Mexico, 88061, United States
Trailhead open 9 AM - 4 PM. You must be off the trail by 5 PM.
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