December 18, 2016 - Lack of Research = Adventure Travel

It's been getting down right cold here in the desert southwest. Scoop is not freeze-friendly. If we stay in below-freezing temps we run the risk of our pipes freezing. Our initial plan was to stay as far south and at a low elevation until we were to head to Albuquerque to Uncle David's. Then I found that our planned route was making us miss cool places like Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. 

We decided to winterize Scoop which we were going to have to do in Albuquerque anyway and hotel it for a couple nights while visiting high desert sights. We stayed in Silver City, New Mexico so the next day we could drive into the canyons where the Gila Cliff Dwellings reside. A quick Google map of the route showed that it was 1.25 hours from Silver City. We could leave Scoop in the parking lot of our hotel, drive to the cliffs, then go pick up Scoop and drive to our next destination that was only a couple hours down the road.

What we didn't research was road conditions. You would think that being from the Sierra Nevada area we would know to check road conditions when traveling at higher elevations in the winter. We didn't even check the elevation. It wasn't long after we started out that the winding, forested, steep county road went from icy patches to full blown ice rink. the 1.25 hour drive became 2+ hours. We arrived at the cliffs safely and were thankful we at least had thought to not tow scoop to the dwellings.

The Gila Cliff Dwellings are up a picturesque one-mile hike up from the valley floor along a creek. It was cold out with patches of snow on the trail, but we were ready for this. Our nail-biting drive and brisk hike were well worth it. These caves made into homes were amazing. A forest docent recited amazing stories of the families that built and resided here. More amazing and appreciated was that visitors were allowed to climb, crawl and explore all throughout the dwellings. I was glad I didn't have a small child to keep track of.

 

 

The rangers at the monument were amazed we braved the mountain road to get to the park and routed us back to Silver City a different way that went around the mountain we went over. The drive back to pick up Scoop and head to our next stop was thankfully uneventful.