Noonday Canyon Box-Gila National Forest

 There's access to this hike off of NM 152 a little less than 1.5 miles west of the now closed Lower Gallinas Camground. A rough road on the north side will take you down to the parking for the Rabb Park Trail (FT 747). I've hiked upstream from this point along Noonday Canyon three times before. Once we hiked on the old road to the older cabin after deeming it too hot to conquer the Rabb Park Trail.  A second time, on a cloudy and cool day, we did make the climb over into Rabb Park. Last fall, we hiked in the stream bed past the cabin for a couple of miles or so.

 October 20th found me out there again, this time with a plan to hike downstream to Noonday's box section, similar to my hikes in Gallinas, Bulltrap and Silver Canyons last year. It had been raining all week, but Saturday was supposed to mercifully precipitation free. I had my doubts though. It was cloudy, windy and much cooler than I expected as I started out.
 The first part of this walk  is in a fairly wide little valley that has been beaten down with grazing, wet years and drought, for a long time. A few colorful oaks were mixed in with the pines and junipers along the banks.



The stream was wet, but silent with an imperceptible flow in the shallow pools.
The road along the stream disappeared shortly, but further down another road came in from the south where there was a denuded meadow that has been used for camping (although by the looks of the fire rings, not too recently). At the confluence with Rabb Canyon, the valley widens considerably. Rabb Canyon had a very small flow as well. I still have plans to explore upstream in Rabb to the junction with the forest trail, but for today I was heading downstream into Noonday's little box which starts immediately after the two streams join.

The scrambling is not too hard and it's a fun 1/4 mile or so through the narrowest parts where the water runs over bedrock and into deep willow lined pools. There was one large alcove that I  investigated in but found no artifacts and where the canyon opened up again there was this little cave that could hold two or three people with juniper timbers and a stone box in front of it.





 I don't how old it is, but from the state of dessication on the timbers, I would have to say it wasn't done anytime recently. I continued on through a bend below a pine covered hillside where a large side canyon comes in from the east. Downstream the fall display of ash, cottonwood, walnut and willow was right at its peak. I found a shady resting place and ate my lunch, but my heart was already content from being in this beautiful canyon.

Afterwards, I walked down around a few more bends. I was expecting to run into a fence marking the boundary between Forest Service and private property, but never did. I did come to a little two tiered waterfall at the head of mini- canyon carved in the  bedrock.
 

Nearby was little used road coming in from the west that reached its dead end. I later discovered, looking at my maps and Google Earth that this spot is just over the boundary and not on  Forest Service land.
The sun had arrived for my return trip to buoy me up for my long return walk. I was glad for the companion.