Would You Let Your Kids Play on a Cliff?: Take a Hike to Gila Cliff Dwelllings, New Mexico

Just how do you tell a sweet little 2.5-year-old blond that she gets to go see a 700-year-old house carved into a hole of a limestone canyon wall and make it sound fun?

Can she possibly understand it? Not really. So here's what we did: "Chloe, do you want to go camping and throw little rocks into a river and climb on big rocks?"

And . . . she's . . . sold.  What a sport.

And off we went to Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument - a one day stop on our Spring Break back road tour of New Mexico.

Funny, because it's another particular lie that is actually responsible for bringing the namesake Mogollon ruins into the modern era - the first European contact with the site. In 1878 a Silver City resident by the name of Henry Ailman was summoned for jury duty, along with a number of his compadres. They didn't care for that at all (I see nothing has changed much in the American psyche). So he and his buddies organized a hasty little prospecting trip into the mountains to get out of their service. "Sorry, judge, we're lookin' fer gold."

On that trip, they discovered the cliff dwellings. So I guess Ailman and friends get a little slack.

The Mogollon people lived there in the late 13th Century. The dwellings are inside five connected alcoves 200 feet above the canyon floor. The Park Service has a mild trail that leads you up the canyon and into the caves.

On our visit, the bridge between the visitor's center and the trailhead had been washed out and they closed it off to motor traffic.  We had to park somewhat close to the visitor's center and hoof it an additional mile along the road to the trail.  No big deal, really. In exchange, the Park Service waived the entrance fee. All's fair in love, war, and inconvenient parking.