Pinyon Jays Flourish in the Gila Forest
PINYON JAYS LIKE TO ANNOUNCE THEMSELVES with a chuckling kind of call, sung out while they fly overhead or settle into chatty flocks, often perched in the branches of the pine tree with which they…
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Tag: Gila National Forest
Quick Facts about the Gila Wilderness
755,000. Acres of the Gila National Forest administratively labeled as wilderness on June 3, 1924 1933. Year the original wilderness area was divided into the Gila and Aldo Leopold wildernesses, which…
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The History of the Gila Cliff Dwellings
“THIS WHOLE MOUNTAIN VALLEY wasn’t some wilderness nobody visited,” says Dana Dick, Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument’s lead interpretive park ranger. “It was home to people. There’s evidence of…
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Editor's Letter: Wild Times
ON JUNE 3, 1924, THE GILA WILDERNESS became the first-of-its-kind wilderness area—a federally designated place with no roads, no cabins, no vehicles. Or, as Aldo Leopold—the Forest Service employee…
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Datebook: April 2024
THE TOWERING PECAN TREES in southern New Mexico have grown near the Río Grande for more than 100 years. Many are attributed to Fabián García, the first director of the New Mexico State University…
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Meet Conservationist Luke Koenig
LUKE KOENIG’S CIRCUITOUS ROUTE from Maryland to Silver City included stops in several western states. While working with Wild Arizona, he regularly tuned in to the Gila Mimbres Community Radio Station…
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Explore the Gila Wilderness in These Books
First and Wildest: The Gila Wilderness at 100, edited by Elizabeth High-tower Allen (Torrey House Press, 2022) Local artists, conservationists, and writers including Michael P. Berman, Martha Schumann…
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The Gila Wilderness At 100
LESS THAN FIVE MILES into the nation’s first designated wilderness area, I scan the muddy banks of New Mexico’s last free-flowing river for animal tracks, wondering who else is here. Low sunlight…
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Fall in Love with New Mexico's Night Skies
FIVE YEARS AGO, during a Perseid meteor shower in August, my husband and I spent our first night at Cosmic Campground in the Gila National Forest. We’d planned the visit ever since DarkSky (formerly…
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Why We Love NM: Our Wild Places Tame Hearts
ALMOST ANYWHERE YOU LIVE IN NEW MEXICO, a mountain range rises within beckoning distance. Our major cities all stand in their shadows. Their names ring with poetry: the Sangre de Cristos, the…
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