Spoiler alert: You won’t find many sunrise or sunset hikes on this blog.
I’m not a camper (too many visions of stuff crawling on me while I sleep), and many of the places we hike are a little ways away, so I’m rarely on the trail at dawn or dusk. The tradeoff for that: missing some of the day’s best light and best opportunities to see wildlife.
So when we saw that the lodge where we were staying outside Silver City had hiking trails on the property (for lodge guests only), we knew it was a unique chance for us to see the day’s light begin to fade from on the trail.
From the start, the experience was different from our usual hiking pattern. We started at 7:30 PM, not 7:30 AM. Silver City’s temperatures went from blazing to cool around dinnertime, so I wore an extra layer. I’d had a beer with dinner, so I was slightly buzzed as we climbed the ridge – a first, since I don’t drink before setting out on five-or-six-mile desert jaunts.
The lodge was tucked into a valley on the edge of the Gila National Forest. We’d seen tons of deer along the road to the lodge and wondered if we might get a closer look on an evening hike. But we were in pinon-juniper hills, and they stayed in grassy areas close to the road, where they could munch on leaves.
The gravel trails were easier to follow and better maintained than many we’ve hiked. The cool evening air, bearing slightly more moisture than the bone-dry afternoons, released the evergreens’ scent. Rabbits scampered.
After a few minutes at the rocky overlook atop the ridge, we headed back down to catch the last of the evening’s light. Clouds pulsed with the sunset’s muted color. The Chino Mine, one of the world’s largest open-pit copper mines, glowed pink across the valley. A crescent moon winked into view high above a distant peak.
Hiking is what I do on Saturdays. Usually, because of the length of the hike, challenging terrain, the area’s remoteness, or a combination of the three, the experience takes up much of the day. Our adventure on the Middle Fork of the Gila River was that kind of hike.
The next day’s hike was right outside our lodge door, took less than an hour, capped off a day of sightseeing in town and gave us a totally different look at the beautiful place where we spent the long weekend.
Now that I’ve experienced a bonus night hike, it won’t be my last.
Hike length: 1.5 miles
Difficulty: moderate
Trail traffic: just us – the lodge’s trails are for guests only
Wildlife spotted: jackrabbits, cottontail
Woman Seeks Elevation 