to the Gila Highway
Scenic byways, awesome views and ancient cliff dwellings in America’s original wilderness area
Story and Photography by Dave G. Houser
“There they are!” my brother Al shouts, pointing up from the steepest sec- tion of the mile-long loop trail leading us to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. Set high in a sandstone canyonwall inside a series of water-carved alcoves, these dwellings are remnants of a 40-room village—an ancient condo of sorts— that served more than 700 years ago as home to about a hundred Mogollon (Mo-go-yon) people. Hunters and farmers, they grew corn, beans and squash in the valley below, hunted deer in the hills, wove yucca baskets and produced distinctive pottery. But their safe and self-sufficient lifestyle lasted only a few decades from the late-1270s to about 1300.
15 COAST TO COAST Spring 2013
Spring 2013 COAST TO COAST 15
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