Mogollon

Saturday 5/14 - we walked the Mogollon Road. Starting at Highway 180, the road climbs for three miles, crosses a green mesa for another mile, climbs for another three miles, and then drops down two miles into the old mining town of Mogollon. If you've ever seen the old spaghetti western My Name is Nobody with Henry Fonda and Terrence Hill, you've seen the town of Mogollon. Very cool little place. The pavement ends now about a quarter mile from the 9 mile marker, but at one time apparently the road was paved all the way through the Gila National Forest over to Beaverhead.

We wanted to spend more time walking downhill than up, so we parked in the middle of town, walked to the end of the pavement, and turned around. Dawdled through town, and then up a series of switchbacks for almost two miles - hard work. Going downhill we startled a small deer, and saw quite a few very fat squirrels, and some lizards. I brought two bottles of frozen water, which melted quickly into lukewarm water.

At the top of the mountain I was struck by something about Catron County - how when I was walking on 12 across the Plains of San Augustin at winter's end, the landscape made me think of African savannah, but walking down the side of a mountain in midspring, I thought it looked a little like we could have been in New Zealand.