24.) We go to New Mexico when we die!?....Headed Toward Somewhere......

     I’ve spent a week in the Gila National Forest now, hiking around to all the cliff dwellings and pictograph sites.  Over and around rolling hills and deep into cliff lined valleys.  Pine forests cover most of the area, tall and slender.  Their branches don't really fill out till further up the trunk so passing through is relatively easy.  All over I see signs of past fires. Acres of dead trees, burnt to black, crumbling ash. I’ve heard about forest fires TV in the past but they're always in some far away place. Being face to face, surrounded by the aftermath, is unsettling.  The land looks devastated. Beyond repair.  But in reality they release nutrients into the ground and clear space for new trees and grasses to grow.  It can take years for an area to fully recover but in the long run the fires are actually beneficial. 
This thought makes the sight of all those black, haunted stumps slightly more tolerable as I emerge from the woods and back onto the main road the runs through the park.  The jeep is parked a mile or 2 up the road so I start off in that direction.  I’ve taken less then 10 paces when an SUV stops next to me. The driver leans out and asks whats it like back there pointing in to the woods I've been hiking through. I turn around to look back into them and think for a moment. I turn back to the driver and smile.  Peaceful I tell her  We get to talking and she offers me a ride back to the jeep. Her name is Terri and she extremely apologetic about the state of her car.  In truth it doesn’t look all that bad to me considering what my jeep looks like at the moment.  Turns out she's doing something similar to me.  Living out of her car, piloting it to beautiful places taking it all in.  She can only get away for a few weeks at a time but she does it whenever she gets a chance.  We exchange a few stories of life on the road.  She's headed to some of the places I’ve just been so I tell her about my favorite spots so far and she tells me of Abiquiu, New Mexico.
“Abiquiu is where you go when you die” she says.  “If heaven is half as beautiful as Abiquiu I’ll be very content there.”  Ghost Ranch and Christ in the Desert Monastary are the only details I can recall later, while I’m scribbling about my day in a notebook but I do remember Terri’s passion.  The love I hear in her voice when she’s speaking of these places is enough for me to want to see them.
Lightfeather Hot Springs are the only ones in the area that I have yet to visit.  I decide to hike the few miles to them and spend the night out there somewhere.  An early morning soak might be a nice thing to wake up for.  At the trailhead I hoist everything I need onto my back and set off into the canyon.  It’s late afternoon, the sun and the temperature have both started their nightly decent.  Less than a half mile in and I’m forced to ford the Gila River.  It’s wide and slow moving so there is very little danger aside from getting my pack wet.  At its deepest the water comes up to the middle of my calves and by the time I step out on to the opposite bank my feet actually hurt from the glacial water.  I have to stop for a moment to flex my toes and get the blood pumping again before I can put my boots back on and continue hiking. I cross the river three more times and before long, I’m sure I've passed the hot springs somewhere along the way.  They’re only supposed to be a mile and a half or so from the trailhead and I’ve already hiked twice that far.  The sun is nearing the horizon so I find a sandy spot on the river bank and set up camp.  I dig a small fire pit slightly lower than my tent in hopes of catching the rising heat while I sleep and also not setting my tent on fire.  With camp set, fire cracking, socks drying I take my camera and walk down onto the rocks in the rivers floodplain.

     My little camp on one side of the river, a forested hill gently climbs behind it and shelters me from the wind.  Across the river the rock face is straight up and nearly bare.  I watch the boulders and ledges for any movement; this is mountain lion territory.  But for now all is still.  The only sound is nature. The wind whistles from deeper in the canyon, the river gurgles by, my fire crackles into the night and I think to myself, “I like this.”
No animal encounters in the night but not long after I break camp and begin the hike back I come across some tracks.  They are either wolf or lion...something with claws, I can’t tell which but it’s in the soft mud in the middle of the trail.  If it was here when I hiked past yesterday, I would have noticed it, it’s too obvious.  Now i’m grateful I made the effort to keep the fire going through the night. It may have changed the minds of some would-be visitors.  

        



I run into Lightfeather hot springs on the way back. I try... and fail,,, to explain how I missed it on the way in. I chalk it up to a glitch in the matrix  Where the water first emerges from the rock it’s hot enough to burn flesh.  I have to go a few yards down river before the temperature is even tolerable.  I stand here and warm my feet but decide against dropping my pack and putting on my bathing suit for a full soak.   Once my feet are warmed sufficiently to cross the river the last few times I’m on my way back to the jeep. Then out of the Gila National Forest and back on the road heading nowhere in particular.