News from the Upper Gila Valley
Summer is upon us on the upper Gila. The monsoon is making a slow entrance and the days are still like hot molasses. This year our river never stopped flowing, thanks to heavy winter rains and near-record uplands snowpack. Typically the upper Gila goes dry in June before the summer monsoon fills it again. But this year the gifts of El Niño hung on, making the streamlands lush with cottonwoods, willow and grasses.
In April we were able to float the Gila from Duncan to the Burma Crossing in Sheldon—about ten miles as the crow flies. Indeed it was Great Blue Heron flying that day, twelve of them tracking our progress as we lazed downstream. Brilliant Vermillion Flycatchers were darting everywhere. A Night-Heron flew overhead, close enough to startle. A herd of sheep watched with some alarm from a rise as we passed below. Under the broken bridge at Burma Road, Emma and Willow, visiting from Washington DC, took plaster casts of raccoon and beaver prints.
News flash – three cheers for the George Walker House, http://www.thegeorgewalkerhouse.com/ in the hamlet of Paradise in the Chiricahua Mountain foothills near Cave Creek Canyon. Proprietor Jackie is an expert birder, and the historic guest house is just as sweet as anyone could want.
And now, on your way to Paradise from Duncan, you can make a stop at the new Chiricahua Desert Museum, right at the turn-off on NM 80 that takes you to Portal and on to Paradise.
This new 8000 sq. foot facility celebrates the diversity of wildlife and spectacular beauty of the eastern Chiricahua region. Adult admission to the collection and the live animal exhibits is only $2.50. Children 6 and under are free with a paid adult.
4 Rattlesnake Canyon Road, at Portal Road & NM 80 28 miles south of I-10. Astonishingly, they don’t seem to have a website, but you can find them on Facebook. It’s a must-see for desert lovers.
At the hotel, we’ve welcomed hotel guests that we’ll not soon forget – warm and interesting people from around the U.S. And we’ve been making slow progress on the Main Street Garden next to the building – it will be a demonstration site for lush, low-water plantings and rainwater harvesting. We’ll let you know when it opens its door (salvaged from the old Santa Rita Hotel in Tucson).
There are some plans for the fall – a more formal invitation to the Sand Hill Cranes followers (we have them here about four months every winter), maybe some floats on the San Francisco River (bring your own kayak or canoe or inner tube), and possibly, at long last, the Real Coronado Trail expedition that we’ve been cooking up with New Mexico State hydrologist and amateur historian Buck Wells for a couple of years.
Let us know if you’d like a personal notification on any of the above.
