Cliff dwellings are deceptively-simple: people took residence in naturally hollowed-out caves. End of story, right?
But some things you don’t consider initially think about when viewing these cave homes is the position of the sun, the angle to the wind, ventilation, and the paths to water. The ancient peoples who lived here DID think of every one of those things– and that makes these kinds of dwellings take on new meaning.
Gila Cliff Dwellings is not easy to access, by any means– it’s a windy mess of narrow roads that climb and drop rapidly, and are rarely guardrailed. It doesn’t seem on-a-glance like it’s many miles from the main highway, but the time to drive in and out of the valley takes much longer than one might guess. In the winter melt, this meant passing through forests piled with snow– luckily, we’d had a few days of melt, and the roads themselves were only wet (not icy).
If you are doing Gila as a day trip, know that it is going to be a very long day. I’d recommend staying one night, to lessen the white-knuckle driving (or in the case of the high season, lines of traffic on roads with zero passing lanes).
Luckily for us, it was decidedly the offseason when we visited Gila– there were only a few cars in the visitors center parking lot.
The ranger informed us right away that the best time to be at Gila IS winter– not just for the lack of crowds. The genius of the south-facing cave homes being the angle of the sun they orient to: winter sunlight fills them with light and warmth, while summer sun (much higher in the sky) floats overhead, throwing shade into the cliffs instead.
Of course, back then, this provided ancient folks with powerful sunlight to keep warm all winter, warming the stone they slept on and even slightly heating the insides of the caves. For someone in modern times, who likes taking photos, this perked me up– it meant the light would touch and illuminate the walls inside, and bring the structures into full visibility. (It’s not quite as easy to see the dwelling walls in the later spring and summer months).
For a destination such a long drive, the trail to the dwellings was laughably short– only about a mile and minimal gain. This was honestly welcome after the tiring drive to get there.
Once we turned the corner and saw the dwellings, we fell quiet. It felt like entering someone’s home, and we both sensed it– we had no desire to talk or shout to one another, but wanted to conduct ourselves respectfully. Moon went ahead, walking ahead and taking the opportunity to sit and take in the view from inside the cozy caverns.
I found her plopped down, staring out and feeling the warmth of the sun streaming in.
Like all cliff dwellings, the ceiling was blackened with the smoke of fires, built for both for warmth and cooking. The beams that held thatched ceilings long gone– but the circles for the tree trunk posts were still visible. Plenty of wood was available along the river valley for harvesting– including the long, slender Ponderosa Pine.
The walls had not eroded much at all in the desert dryness, protected from the elements even more by the cliffs. They were impeccably built– with clear craftsmanship. They remained straight-edged after hundreds of years.
Only a few of the dwellings were accessible, but they had found 46 total– and archeologists suspect about 15 families shared the space. They were built in the late 1200s, making their level of intactness even more amazing. For a little over eight hundred years, these dwellings had survived, despite being long-abandoned by the ancient people who built them.
It is estimated they were not inhabited full-time for long– only a hundred years or so. As with many early peoples of the Southwest, no one knows exactly why they left when they did.
As the sun advanced in the sky, we also could not stay for long. We stupidly had decided to do the Gila Cliff Dwellings in just one day, and had hours of driving to go. As we descended away from the highest dwellings via ladder, and looked up from beneath them, they looked stronger somehow– more imposing and protective. Like a sanctuary.
One of the things we loved most about the Gila Cliff Dwellings was the warm winter light and winter solitude– only a few other people mulled past us in our time there, and it felt as peaceful as possible. I can’t imagine visiting during busy times, and not being able to feel the light on our faces, and the quiet and stillness that brought even more gravity to this ancient home.
If you can, make the trip to Gila Cliff Dwellings– preferably, on a sunny day in the wintertime.
Posted by Sun
