Looking for flow? Try the Middle Fork of the Gila River

“Hey guys, we just saw a rattlesnake at the wilderness boundary, about a mile north. Be careful.”

So began our visit to the Middle Fork of the Gila River.

I worry a lot. Hikes are no exception. In fact, they are the ultimate fodder for worry. (RATTLESNAKES!)

I was worried about plenty before we even got on the trail.

The heat. Despite our best efforts to leave early, we’d arrived at the Middle Fork at high noon on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.

The drive back. The breathtaking hairpin drive in made me so dizzy in the passenger seat the only way I could keep my bearings was to drive. So I knew when we finally washed up at the trailhead again, I’d have another two-hour white-knuckled experience behind the wheel ahead of me.

But I was here, at one of my bucket list hikes, nearly a full day’s drive from Albuquerque. It wasn’t something I could try again next weekend. We were going for it.

The air temperature dropped by a good seven degrees as soon as we got down to the river, and another five once our feet were in the water. Which they were for probably 40 percent of this hike.

The Gila flows for hundreds of miles, much of it free-flowing. We were hiking into a spectacular canyon of cliffs, caves, spires, towering evergreens and swaying foliage.

I hike in the desert, so I’d forded a tiny trickle a grand total of once. Wading in knee-deep, climbing over river rocks and feeling stones slip beneath my feet as I crossed was a completely new experience. That meant there were moments when I wasn’t preoccupied with anything, I was only a person trying to keep my footing on the slippery stones as the water flowed over my ankles.

A breeze tossed the leaves and cattails along the bank, and the sun poured through them. Butterflies skittered everywhere. Frogs croaked. People sunbathed in natural hot spring pools along the banks of the river. (We passed those by – the only time I’ve ever passed up a hot spring, but it was plenty hot enough out there.)

We passed a mileage sign that told us we’d come 1.5 miles from the trailhead. I was floored. I would have guessed we’d gone at least a mile more at that point. The exertion of climbing over rock and walking through flowing water made distance hard to gauge. I’d dreamed of getting seven miles roundtrip on this trail, but I’d also made a deal with myself that I’d be satisfied with however far we got.

Our final stop was a shady, still bend in the river under a gargantuan cliff. It took a while to figure out how to get to it and longer to reach it – it was the deepest spot we forded, a little past my knees. It felt far away from everything and everyone – despite the holiday weekend, we hadn’t seen a soul in nearly a mile. But when we reluctantly got up to leave, we were back on the trail again in under five minutes.

I’ll remember most the colors of this hike – the black and beige of the canyon walls, the deep brown of the river always below, the brilliant green of the sun pouring through leaves. And I’ll remember the feeling of the water flowing around my feet. It took literally getting into a river to find a few moments of the elusive state known as flow – where you are fully absorbed in the task at hand and there’s no room for the constant internal chatter that takes up most of the space in our heads.

On the way out, we took a different, less twisty forest road through a valley. As we neared the highway back to Silver City, I saw a single, tiny wisp of cloud. Even in New Mexico, with over 300 days of sunshine a year and killer blue skies, I had never before spent an entire day in the wilderness without seeing a cloud.

Oh yeah: we never saw the rattlesnake.

Hike length: The trail’s 40 miles; we went about 4.5 roundtrip

Difficulty: Moderate

Trail traffic: Plenty of people, but tons of room for all of them

Wildlife spotted: turkey vultures, ravens, butterflies, frogs (seen but not heard), lizards, cicadas

TIPS! 1) Bring dry shoes and socks for the drive back. I brought hiking shoes and water shoes, but both were soaked by the time for the two-hour return drive. 2) If you are even a little prone to motion sickness, even if it’s not usually a problem, I recommend you be the one behind the wheel if you are taking spectacular NM 15 all the way from Silver City to the Gila River. Or, take NM 35, also lovely, to meet 15 for a less dizzying drive.