The last miles to the Gila Cliff Dwellings are the reason the Trail of the Mountain Spirits has its reputation. From Silver City the road climbs through the old mining village of Pinos Altos and then settles into a long, tight conversation with the mountains: pine, juniper, a ridge, a drop, another ridge. It is slow going, and nobody who rides it fast enjoys it. Count on a couple of hours for the last stretch, and be glad of every turnout, because the corners come in strings and the surface is the sort of patched asphalt that rewards a rider who looks well ahead.
The destination sits in the Gila Wilderness, a huge roadless block of southwestern New Mexico that was set aside as wilderness in the 1920s, one of the first places anywhere to be protected that way. The dwellings themselves are small rooms tucked into natural caves high in a canyon wall above the Gila River's forks. People of the Mogollon culture built them in the late thirteenth century, using timbers that can be dated to within a season or two, and they lived here only a short time before moving on. The cave rooms are reached on foot by a short loop trail from the parking area, with a creek crossing and a climb up a stairway of stone. Bring boots you can walk in, not racing leathers, and expect the whole visit to take an hour or more.
What stays with you is the quiet. The canyon walls are a pale volcanic tuff, pocked and stained, and the river runs clear over cobbles under sycamores and cottonwoods. Mule deer wander the picnic ground without much interest in visitors, and in the evening there is a smell of warm pine and dust. Hot springs are scattered through this country, a reminder of how recently, in geological terms, it was all volcanoes.
Plan your fuel before you leave the highway. There is nothing for the bike out here, and the nearest town of any size is Silver City, back down the road you came on. Take water, because the visitor area is small and remote, and give yourself daylight both ways. The mountain road in the dark, with elk and deer about, is not the ride you came for. Late spring and autumn are the kindest seasons; midsummer brings monsoon storms in the afternoons, and winter can leave ice in the shaded corners.