This Quiet New Mexico Town Is An Underrated Gem For Nature Lovers
Often called the "Gateway to the Gila Wilderness," Silver City sits in southwestern New Mexico as a historic Old West town of brick-and-adobe storefronts. The city opens onto one of the country's most remote natural landscapes through the Catwalk and Fort Bayard Recreation Areas. Mountain forests run north into the Gila National Forest. Boston Hill traces the southern edge of town with miles of former mining trails. Western New Mexico University adds a college-town layer to the mining-era downtown. With its welcoming community spirit, Silver City quietly stands out as one of New Mexico's most rewarding nature-focused destinations.
From Main Street To The Big Ditch
The discovery of silver chloride ore in the Chloride Flats area during the summer of 1870 led to the founding of Silver City soon afterward, attracting a large number of miners, merchants, and their families to the growing frontier town. In 1895, a devastating flood washed away much of Main Street, leaving a 55-foot-deep ditch in its wake. Instead of filling in the ditch and paving it over, the channel has become part of the urban landscape of Silver City as The Big Ditch, a green walking path with hiking trails, bridges, benches, and lots of shade that gives city dwellers a quick nature break without leaving the downtown core. For cyclists, the 20-mile Little Walnut Trail system of singletrack is about 5 to 10 minutes by car from downtown.
Hiking Through History Near Silver City
Overlooking Silver City at an elevation of around 6,000 feet above sea level, the Boston Hill Open Space Trail System is a low-key destination that offers you a chance to explore a 10-mile network of hiking and biking trails with names like Adonis Pits, King Bolt Pit, and Luck Mill that were once part of the town's mining past. About 8 miles from Silver City, you will find the Fort Bayard Historic District, a former military post, tuberculosis sanatorium, and hospital that is now a historic enclave worth visiting.
While there, take a hike to see the Big Tree, a huge alligator juniper (named for bark that resembles alligator scales), thought to be the second-largest alligator juniper in the U.S. The tree is 63 feet tall with a trunk circumference of over 18 feet and is estimated to be 800 to 1,000 years old.
The nearby Fort Bayard Recreation Area offers hiking, biking, and horseback riding trails, with two National Recreation Trails that connect to the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, which covers 3,100 miles between Mexico and Canada. The Dragonfly Trail is a popular hiking trail, perhaps more well-known for the presence of petroglyphs etched on rocks two miles from the trailhead.
The Catwalk National Recreation Trail is a scenic walkway built high above Whitewater Canyon, about an hour's drive from Silver City. The trail began as a wooden plank walkway built atop a suspended pipeline system in the late 1880s, carrying water out of Whitewater Creek toward a nearby silver ore processing plant, whose ruins can be seen in the parking lot. In the 1960s, the walkway was replaced with a metal structure as an attraction for the Gila National Forest, which today is a roughly one-mile trail past hidden trout-filled pools and cascading waterfalls where you can wade, swim, fish, and picnic.
Hiking, Rafting, And Soaking In The Gila
No visit to Silver City would be complete without a visit to Gila Wilderness, which locals simply call "the Gila." The Gila, a 558,065-acre remote landscape, includes everything mountain meadows, deep rugged canyons, and forests full of aspen trees can offer, within the larger Gila National Forest. The first designated wilderness in the U.S., the Gila offers a true bucket-list experience for hikers and backpackers, with camping, rafting, and horseback riding amid remote natural beauty as far as the eye can see. No roads, no buildings, no cell towers. It is about as off-the-grid as you can get.
You can drive to the edge of the Gila Wilderness from Silver City in about 1.5 to 2 hours. Once there, explore the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, a 40-chamber complex built into the walls of a canyon by the people of the Mogollon culture after a challenging one-mile hike. Or you can hike to the Jordan Hot Springs, a 15-mile out-and-back hike from the Gila Cliff Dwellings. Kayaking or rafting down the Gila River is for water lovers who want to take on a 7-mile stretch of water near the visitor center.
Active Community Living
The town always seems to find time to hold a community celebration, with a packed calendar of local events including the Silver City Blues Festival, the Tour of the Gila bicycle stage race that runs through parts of the Gila National Forest, the Hummingbird Festival, the Wild Wild West Rodeo, and the Silver City Museum's annual Ice Cream Social. Since its founding in 2011, the Silver City Clay Festival has celebrated the endless possibilities of clay in all its forms. The week-long series of events takes place every June, with international artists joining in on workshops, discussions, and a juried exhibition.
Discover Silver City, New Mexico's Nature Hideaway
Unlike the trajectory of many small New Mexico mining towns, which become ghost towns when the mines dry up, Silver City pivoted to copper mining in the early 20th century when silver played out. Today, while copper is still a major player in the local economy, Silver City attracts artists, college students enrolled at Western New Mexico University, and outdoor enthusiasts. While its biggest draw is its location on the edge of the Gila Wilderness, there are plenty of other underrated outdoor destinations to discover nearby, with the historic trails of Boston Hill, the forested paths around Fort Bayard, and the dramatic canyon scenery of the Catwalk Recreation Area among the highlights.
