2 Miles Roundtrip Out & Back

$3

Catwalk National Recreation Area is in far southwestern New Mexico in the Gila Wilderness Area of the Gila Mountains near Mogollon off of Highway 180. It has hikes, a creek, a waterfall, and trails that extend beyond into the wilderness. It's a beautiful place to explore and find solitude. If there’s rain in the mountains, beware of the road flooding! We had to drive through some high water twice to reach the parking lot.

The price and distance is well worth it as you get to explore old mining operations while walking above a beautiful water feature known as Whitewater Canyon in this secluded part of the Land of Enchantment. It’s a popular spot for locals and people passing through on account of the shade, the rushing water, the many picnic tables, and the lovely trail. The trail is a loop and I prefer to cross the bridge FIRST. Then head up the eastern side of the canyon before heading to the end, turning around whenever you like, and heading back on the western side.

Scroll down for the area’s history which I gleaned from the plaques at the start of the trail.

In 1889, gold and silver deposits were discovered in the beautiful and rugged mountains that surround Whitewater Canyon. Immediately after that discovery, mines with names like Confidence, Blackbird, Redbird, and Bluebird were developed. The mined ore was then taken by mule train from the canyon to the mill which was located at the mouth of Whitewater Canyon. The mill and the town needed some electricity to run though. So, the strong, capable, and intelligent men of the time decided to undergo an intense operation to bring water to the electric generator. Their answer was a 4 inch pipeline that ran for 3 miles up the Canyon before replacing that pipeline with an 18 inch one. Amazingly, the 200 towns people below had electricity by 1893. The water was also used to process the silver and gold at the mill. It was truly an engineering marvel. You can still see the bolts, notches, steel, and other hardware that anchored the pipeline on the walls of the canyon as you hike. The pipeline needed maintenance so the workers built a narrow walkway above the fray of the rushing water which apparently required cat-like balancing skills which is how the area got it’s name of Catwalk.

The mill shut down in 1913 but the ore was still mined until 1942.

In 1930 the local Civilian Conservation Corps transformed the pipeline and the wooden catwalk into a recreation trail which was replaced with metal grating in the 1960s by the Forest Service.

More history below.

In the late 1800s, Geronimo used this beautiful canyon and the river as a sanctuary when he fled from American Forces. He was born not far from here in the Gila Mountains at the source of the Gila River according to his own story.

In the Gila and Mogollon Mountains a whole bunch of miners flocked to the area with ore carts, dynamite, buckets, and hand drills to find and take the plentiful gold and silver that lay in the folds of the mountain below the earth’s surface. It wasn’t easy or safe work but someone had to do it.

At the mill there were noisy and heavy steam-powered ore crushers called stamp mills which pounded the rocks into powder. If you weren’t mining in the dark or in the loud dangerous mill, chances are you were with the heavy wagon loads of ore being led by twenty horses for the 3 to 5 mile trip from mine to mill. Once the silver and ore were stamped into bars (the gold bars called bullion that we’re used to seeing) they took a weeklong trip to Silver City. From Silver City the ore then went up to Denver where they made into coins.

This Graham Mill was quite large but all that remains are the foundations which you can still see. The whole town was named Graham and before it was abandoned in 1913 it had a laundry, saloon, dance hall, general store, and 200 people.

There are tons of nearby campgrounds that also offer seclusion and dark night skies for star watching like the Cosmic Campground, Big Horn Campground, and Cottonwood Campground.