DIFFICULTY LEVEL: BEGINNER Rattlesnake Springs. You want a desert oasis? This is a desert oasis. Managed by Carlsbad Caverns National Park, these spring-fed ponds and streams were once an extensive…
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ALONG NM 35, in the southern range of the Gila National Forest, a sign shaped in the National Forest Service’s trademark trapezoid bears a question mark. No words. No arrows. Just that. Puzzled…
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WHEN THERE ARE 3.3 MILLION acres of the Gila National Forest to hike, bike, camp, fish, photograph, and explore, you don’t want to waste even a few hours getting there. That’s why the Grant County…
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SILVER CITY FACED CATASTROPHE in the 1890s, when great floods wiped away Main Street and many of its buildings. But the townspeople quickly rallied, building a new thoroughfare parallel to the old…
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THE COW PASTURE’S RAIN-DAMPENED soil bucks and falls in irregular patterns, evidence of past archaeological digs on the NAN Ranch, near Silver City. Chest-high sacaton grass, interspersed with native…
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1 Go west. New and young artists are changing the Western art scene. Young Guns , a new exhibit opening this weekend at Manitou Galleries, in Santa Fe, highlights innovative works that also pay homage…
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ALDO LEOPOLD'S MONUMENTAL IDEA became the 1922 birth of the Gila Wilderness, the first such protected place in the nation. In honor of its centennial, Elizabeth Hightower Allen gathered essays from…
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The wildflowers are listed clockwise from top left. Illustration by Chris Philpot. Cowpen daisy Known locally as añil del muerto (“bluing of death”), this cheery yellow flower fills vacant lots and…
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On a cool October morning in southwestern New Mexico, mist from Snow Lake drifts into the golden grasses along the trail. Brushstrokes of rose and blue dance across the water, reflecting the predawn…
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Patrice Mutchnick inspects a leaf of dock (Rumex sp.) , a common riparian plant in Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. AS WILLIAM NORRIS AND RUSS KLEINMAN drive through the pink rhyolite-lined…
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