Finally, after many months of crazy hiking adventures in faraway lands, I hiked a trail in the vicinity of home again that is worthwhile reporting.
Our good friend Molly recently relocated to Silver City and in early October we went up for a visit. It was the Southwest Print Fiesta on Saturday with an unfortunate heavy rain almost all day.
Sunday promised to be better and we headed out to the Little Walnut Day Use Area to hike Gomez Peak. In the few weeks since Molly moved here, this has become her regular exercise hike, short enough to do after work, long enough to get the heart rate going and the legs moving. The signage is excellent, there is little chance of getting lost here. After the Saturday rains, the little creek ran profusely. The wildflower bloom was mostly over by this date, just a few sun flowers and occasional asters were left. Molly raved about the fields of Cosmos, swaying in the wind, she had seen only a few weeks earlier.
The trail starts amongst pine trees and is not steep at first, but gets gradually steeper as you get closer to the top. Pine trees make way for junipers. The trail ends with some rock steps. The top of the mountain is fairly bare of vegetation and Wow, what a view it is. 360 degrees of beautiful rolling hills and mountains, covered in trees, with Silver City nestled neatly in the nearest valley. The sky was still cloudy and some of the higher mountain tops were shrouded in fog, adding a mystical element to the experience.
We only encountered five other hikers on this trail which took us just over two hours to complete. You can find more detailed information about this trail on the alltrails app. One thing I was unable to find out was who the mountain was named after. Who was Gomez? Maybe a reader can enlighten me. I will skip the Addams Family pun here.
Silver City is always worth a trip with its funky downtown area, and with a good friend living there now we are sure to explore more trails there in the near future.
As always, stay safe and remember to take enough water.
See you on the trails, Gabriele
