Friday Photos: Up the Gila River

Last month I went down to New Mexico and did a mellow 6-night backpack trip up the Middle Fork of the Gila River, and down the West Fork. I'm still working on the photos (I'm also working on some significant revisions to the new novel, and selling books live on weekends, so it's been hard to focus on my photography, no pun intended).

The hike was exactly what I needed, a bit of mountain, a bit of desert, and a bunch of trail nights, but it wasn't as exciting photographically as some. Still, I think I got some good shots, and I'll share a dozen or so here from the first couple of days, which is as far as I've gotten with the edits. 

About a hundred yards from the car, we spotted a herd? troop? pack? of javelinas.

The hallmark of the Gila River trail is... river crossings. Since the trail follows the river up a canyon, it is forced to switch from side to side frequently. VERY frequently. 

First crossing, and a fairly deep one--over my knees. Most were ankle to mid-calf, though a couple wetted the bottom of my shorts.

The first mile or so, the canyon is relatively wide and open in places, so there were more desert flowers.

Firewheel.

Datura.

Looking upriver along a rare dry bit of trail.

The big theme of Day One was cottonwood trees with beautiful white bark.

We spotted lots of polliwogs and some frogs.

 

As we worked our way upstream, the canyon began to get deeper and narrower, with rock formations for added interest.

We had a nice, long lunch break in the shade near Jordan Hot springs. We'd made good time, and figured another 1-2 hours would take us far enough, so we took a siesta.

Jordan Hot Springs. We didn't go in; the water was lukewarm at best, and is reputed to harbor some nasty amoebas we didn't care to play with.

Camp one. We had to pay attention to be sure we didn't wander into the poison ivy--there was a LOT in some places, and some in most places.

Petey Possum came along!

We did something between 10 and 11 miles, not too demanding as the elevation gain was only about 300', though the rough trail (in places) and stream crossings made it more work than it might seem.

Day 2 started before 8, since we all tend to get up when it gets light (and go to bed when it gets dark).

The rhyolite that makes up the canyon for the most part doesn't form quite the perfect columns you get in basalt, but it does at times form pretty convincing columns.
 

 

A classic moment on the trail--the best views were from the middle of the stream crossings, complete with reflections!

 

Me, in the ever more canyon-like canyon. 

 

When not making columns, the stone erodes into interesting shapes, like this cat.

 

During the course of the day, the canyon narrowed more, and the vegetation changed--we stopped seeing much in the way of cottonwoods, and started seeing various pines (ponderosa and lodgepole, we think).

This little "falls" felt like it marked a change in the hike from desert to mountains, though of course it wasn't that simple. 

Taking the low road. There were some deep pits in the stream here, so we preferred to skirt the edge or else go up and over the rocks.

After the javelinas on day one, we didn't see much larger than lizards for several days.

Not sure what this was--I never saw a dragonfly that color, but it mostly seemed to fit the genre.

Again we hiked something between 10 and 11 miles, and we even got a sunset at camp that night!

 That's as far as I've gotten with the edits, and even with what I said about the photo ops being limited, I seem to have a lot of photos I just had to share! More next week, or the week after...

 

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 ©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2026 

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