Silver City to Doc Campbell’s Outpost

The day we reached Silver City we spent a few hours in Javelina’s Coffee, a cozy shop with a friendly barista, to kill a few hours before checking in to our room at the Murray hotel. That evening I met Nemo and the three of us had dinner at Revel. Our zero day was filled with chores: laundry, shopping, post office. I stopped by the Silver City community radio station and met Kyle who was instrumental in getting the little station off the ground.

Twisted had to find a cook pot as some of the equipment he ordered did not arrive. We picked up steaks, potatoes, salad mix and eggs, stoped by the hotel and bid adieu to Nemo then walked to our next place for the night: St. Mary’s retreat, a former convent for nuns converted to a guest retreat. We had access to a full kitchen, gas grill, laundry, wifi and a lounge area. After sorting our food resupply, I prepared our steak dinner and then we mostly caught up on life with emails or phone calls back home.

The next morning we made steak and eggs and headed back out to the trail via the Walnut Creek alternate, another road walk of 7.5 miles where we caught up to and surprised Shadow and Country Mouse walking ahead!

Walking and talking the miles went by quickly. After reaching Bear Creek and taking a break, our group – now numbering four – decided to hike to the next water source. Along the way Devils Garden, an array of odd hoodoos and spires, revealed themselves providing us brand new terrain to take in.

After passing the Garden we descended to a few puddles nestled in the volcanic rock and a hand written sign that indicated there was water another 0.3 miles ahead. Then we came upon the regis-tree:

A perfect tree stump with a mailbox, trail register and hand made CDT sign lay before us inviting the group to camp in next to its cozy confines. We dropped our packs and headed for water, then we met our host Doug, a hermit who’d lived on what we learned was a small piece of private property dropped into the middle of the national forrest. Doug gave us a tour of the property complete with garden, well, and a cabin. We made our dinner and Doug joined us while telling us his amazing story of living in isolation for 20 years! Then we were treated to a gorgeous sunset before hitting the sack.

We woke the next morning and joined Doug at his cabin for coffee and more stories. Before we left he gave us each a braided loop, hand made from yucca fibers with a small tin medallion of the Benedictine. We named Doug “Saint” thanked him for his graciousness and then headed out on the trail a few hours later than we usually might.

The trail took us up and around the Devil’s Garden and through a small canyon filled with short oaks, lodgepole pine and past several small springs. Then we climbed 1000’ up to a saddle and dropped through a healthy stand of large pine and douglas fir. We had lunch then passed an old corral and continued over a few old roads connected with single track. We could see an amazing landscape begin to unfold as we dropped 1500’ of elevation to the Gila river, two miles down extremely rough and rocky singe track.

We hit the bottom of the canyon and the Gila river then proceeded down the trail which crossed the river again and again.

And again…

We walked over sand and gravel, mud and dry grass plains, and past beautiful cliffs before camping for the night near a giant birch tree. In the morning after a near freeze, we got up a little lazier and headed out for another 16 miles, 30-40 more river crossings, and Gila canyon terrain. The last few miles were good tread and less river crossings and we made it to Gila bridge a little after 1pm. A 1.5 mile road walk brought us to Doc Campbell’s, a small general store by the various developed hot springs areas with an RV park and campground across the road. This is where we all picked up resupply boxes of food we’d each sent ourselves for the next 6 days and 130+ miles for the next leg to Pie Town.