My Morning Coffee Date with the Gila Wilderness

This week I’m staying in New Mexico with my friend Sandy, and enjoying the breathtaking views of the Gila National Forest from her back porch.

I’ve been enjoying my coffee every morning here and loving this start to the day. Life is rough! I could stare out here for hours.

The Gila National Forest begins at the blue ridge line in the distance and continues on far beyond this hillside for 3.3 MILLION acres.

Within the 3.3 million acres is the Gila Wilderness, the first wilderness area ever established.

Sandy has decorated her wall with topo maps of the Gila forest. See why we are friends? This and about a million other reasons. (See horseback riding story here: Learning to Ride.)

These peaks are about 8,000 feet high, and I’m sitting at 6,500 feet taking this picture. The spruce fir and aspen that surround me are putting me in the mood for Christmas!

The pine is abundant out here, as are the mule deer. We’ve already spotted at least a dozen; a few fawns, a buck, and several plump fuzzy does bouncing across the dirt road. Of course, I didn’t have a camera handy but I got the tracks.

There are some beautiful cactus is in bloom out here too. This part of the country is where pine forests and arid desert meet, and the combo of cactus and pine have to be one of my favorite plant combos ever.

Gorgeous.

Good times with good friends in the foothills of the Rockies. I love it and never tire of the mountains or desert.