West Fork Gila River - Gila Wilderness

 

Fishing in the West Fork Gila River

Smoky skies throughout the trip

Rock pinnacles on the West Fork

Alcoves with ruins 

We did this backpack one summer (or late, late spring) in the early 2000's. There were fires burning out in the western part of the Gila Wilderness, which made for smoky skies, but I don't recall any other ill effects.  The first day we only made it a short ways past the little cliff dwelling ruins that are about 3 miles from the parking lot. The second day we did a dayhike that got us at least to somewhere between Ring Canyon and Hell Hole Canyon tributaries.  I know we got past White Rocks Canyon, well, because of all the white rocks we saw.  We may have made it a little past Hell Hole Canyon because I distinctly remember the trail going well up on the hillside, and the place where it cuts off a bend at Hell Hole Canyon is the only place where it does that on that on the south side.  I wanted to make it to White Creek, but that would have been a really long hard day. I did some fishing on the way back. I remember catching one really nice rainbow, and one big roundtail chub. I was still really a beginner fly-fisher back then, and probably made all kinds of rookie mistakes, but I was pretty happy. The weather was warm and we got into some of the deeper pools of the cold river to swim without too much hesitation. I only recall seeing one other group the whole time we were out.  Note: Pictures taken on little Kodak film camera, so forgive the quality.

Black Fire - Aldo Leopold Wilderness, Black Range, Gila National Forest

  I will try to keep this simple, but who knows what will happen?  The Black Fire is burning nearly all of the Aldo Leopold Wilderness ( the third largest wilderness in our state), the heart of the Black Range Mountains. It is so dry that even the recovered areas of the Silver Fire, thick with locust, oak, aspen shrubbery and grass are burning again (https://southernnewmexicoexplorer.blogspot.com/2013/07/silver-fire.html). 

Wonderful areas like Taylor Creek that are immediately adjacent to the wilderness and still within the Gila National Forest have burned as well (https://southernnewmexicoexplorer.blogspot.com/2020/10/taylor-creek-gila-national-forest.html). 

I am sad that this is all happening(again) to a place I love.This fire started in May, and since we've hardly even had any clouds for three months, never mind rain or lightning, that means it was started by extremely careless human beings.  I understand that fire has always been part of the natural cycles of our forest, but it's not even close to natural when they start in April or early May by human hands. The problem with a fires starting in early May, as opposed to June or July is that it has a long time to burn before the monsoon rains appear. It also means it's burning at the driest, windiest time of the year. So it's burning hot all day and all night.

Until several wildernesses were established in 2019 in the Organ Mountains Desert Peaks National Monument, the Aldo Leopold was the closest wilderness to my home here in Las Cruces, and until the Silver Fire in 2013 the Black Range was our main forest stomping ground. We have car-camped, backpacked, fished and hiked there since 1998.

 I am forever conceiving, then revising and prioritizing my " bucket list" of hikes I want to do in  New Mexico. One page in my  current notebook ( I've gone through several over 24 years) is devoted to the Black Range.  I had 18 hikes in there. Two I completed back in the fall, Stoner Creek (Pine Spring Mountain) and Trujillo Canyon, beautiful places that I wrote about in this blog. So that left 16. Fretting over the ever growing "pink area" on the Inciweb map was/is a daily routine. First it burned up South Diamond in a day (!), one of the few major drainages of the Black Range that I hadn't visited. Cross that one off. Then it got into Hoyt Creek, a place I had wanted to visit back in 2020 when we camped at Corduroy Canyon ( which burned last year by the way). Cross another one off. It got to Reed's Meadow, and Upper North Palomas and Moccasin John canyons. Cross those off. It got to Circle Seven tributaries Deadman Canyon and North Prong. Cross those . . . well actually I've just been writing the "Burnt" next to entries. I didn't have the heart to cross them out. Diamond Peak? Burnt. Upper Morgan Creek?. Burnt. Mcknight Canyon (this one would be a revisit)? Burnt.  In all, half of the places on my list are done in, and since I'm nearly 61 years old I doubt I will ever be trying to visit any of them. My days of tearing (and getting torn) through locust, stepping over endless fallen snags,  sweating without a lick of shade, navigating through debris without a hint of a trail while "enjoying" views of black stumps are definitely numbered. See my blogs for East and West Curtis Canyons if you don't know what I'm talking about.   https://southernnewmexicoexplorer.blogspot.com/2016/03/east-curtis-spring-aldo-leopold.html

https://southernnewmexicoexplorer.blogspot.com/2016/03/west-curtis-canyon-aldo-leopold.html

Then I  would wonder "will it get to South Fork Palomas? or North Seco?, or Taylor Creek?, or Middle Circle Seven?, or Lower Morgan Creek?"  It did. It had already burned up Turkey Run and Main Diamond. All these beautiful places that I've visited over the years just part of an ever-growing burn scar. Now it's moving down into Las Animas Creek, and probably Holden Prong. I've felt for awhile without some sort of precipitation it's only going to stop at NM 152. Kingston may have to be evacuated. 

https://southernnewmexicoexplorer.blogspot.com/2017/10/south-palomas-creek-aldo-leopold.html

https://southernnewmexicoexplorer.blogspot.com/2020/06/north-seco-creek-box-aldo-leopold.html

https://southernnewmexicoexplorer.blogspot.com/2018/04/circle-seven-creek-camping-2018-gila.html

https://southernnewmexicoexplorer.blogspot.com/2012/07/morgan-creek-gila-national-forest.html

https://southernnewmexicoexplorer.blogspot.com/2015/04/circle-seven-creek-camping-2015.html

https://southernnewmexicoexplorer.blogspot.com/2015/04/circle-seven-creek-trail-ft-106-gila.html

https://southernnewmexicoexplorer.blogspot.com/2012/08/circle-seven-creek-camping-earlier-trips.html

https://southernnewmexicoexplorer.blogspot.com/2007/11/circle-seven-creek-camping.html

The proximal causes: mega-drought and a stupid person. The long term cause, of course, climate change. But the idea of wilderness itself is a factor in this fire. There are no fire breaks in a wilderness.  Forest wilderness areas defy firefighting because of the very nature of what they are: the most rugged areas of our state. Even though we are in our second decade of huge catastrophic fires in the southwest it seems that all we can do is react, not prevent, not protect. It is a failure in our thinking. We could say these events are inevitable, and perhaps they are under current avenues of thought. It's a failure of will as well. In some way I believe that because we don't do more to stop wildfires (I'm talking those human caused ones) before they happen, it's almost as if it is our collective will to have them happen.  These gigantic blazes are happening over and over again and yet each time we arrive at a dry spring that follows a dry winter and fall and the winds start to blow, there is no urgency to our thinking or behavior. Surely, it won't happen again, or here, we dream.  And then it does. Sometimes we get lucky and the fires don't amount to much, but sometimes we don't get lucky and then . . . 

 Should we: Close the forest sooner rather later (as in too late)? Have a firefighting force at the ready at the most vulnerable areas before any fires even start (some might think this too expensive, but I read recently that fighting the Hermit's Peak fire is costing about five million dollars a day, so maybe not)? Cut firebreaks in the wilderness, even though it would be using mechanized equipment?

 I don't know. I do know these areas will recover, but it will be many years before they are anything like what they were, and some areas will never be what they were again without the aid of human intervention. Pines, firs, and spruces just aren't coming back in burned areas here in the dry southwest. I also know no one wants to visit a burned-up forest, myself included.  I have been looking for areas that didn't burn since the Silver Fire ( Google Earth helps with this) and if a hike leads me into a burn area, that's usually where I turn around. Now I have to turn around from the Aldo Leopold.

An entire wilderness burned.

FOOTNOTE (6/21/22): Rain has somehow come miraculously early this year. Not soon enough to have both the first and second largest wildfires in New Mexico's history in the same season, but still we are grateful.  The Black Fire's behavior right now is "minimal" and the perimeter is 68% contained. It looks like about 90% of the Aldo Leopold burned. It almost seems sadder now that the end is sight. Floods will come washing ash into native trout streams ( Holden Prong-Las Animas, Diamond, South Diamond, Black Canyon) as well the few ( non- trout) streams like East, Mineral, North Percha, Hoyt, and Taylor Creeks that contain mixtures of native and non-native species like dace, shiners, suckers and bass ( Taylor and Hoyt). I will probably still visit areas of the Black Range south of NM 152, but I won't have the heart look at many areas on north side. I feel like many of the most special areas had high intensity burns, so I will be waiting for the fire severity map to see what's what.