Thenaturalmedic Adventures
Hello there, and thanks so much for joining us here! You are probably wondering what this podcast is all about? In this podcast, we will talk about all sorts of outdoor adventures, but primarily, for now, we will focus on hiking and backpacking. No other outdoor adventure is so accessible to so many people! So please join us as we talk about how to hike/backpack and learn how to hike any length trail from your local neighborhood parks to those long trails such as the Appalachian and others worldwide! Remember... "in every walk with nature; one receives far more than he seeks... - John Muir " See you on the trail!
Thenaturalmedic Adventures
Walk the Plank: The Dizzying Heights of Gila's Historic Catwalk
Note: Audio only, please see YouTube for video version.
Hidden within the rugged terrain of New Mexico's Gila National Forest lies an engineering marvel with a fascinating past. The Catwalk National Recreational Trail suspends visitors along sheer canyon walls, following a path first blazed by silver miners in the 1890s.
My journey begins at the trailhead where interpretive signs reveal the area's rich mining heritage. When silver and gold were discovered in Whitewater Canyon in 1889, ambitious prospectors built a wooden pipeline traversing three miles of treacherous terrain. Workers maintained this structure by balancing on narrow wooden planks that earned the nickname "catwalk" due to the cat-like agility required to navigate them. Though mining operations ceased by 1913, this remarkable pathway found new life decades later.
Walking the modern metal walkway, I'm struck by the dramatic juxtaposition of human engineering against raw nature. The first half-mile offers accessible, paved paths 40 feet above Whitewater Creek. Evidence of nature's power is everywhere—reinforced rock walls, mesh barriers, and countless stabilizing bolts testify to the 15 major floods that have reshaped this canyon over four decades. The 2012 flood destroyed the previous infrastructure, making today's trail a modern rebuild that honors its historic predecessor.
The canyon's volcanic geology tells an even older story. I examine fascinating formations, including pumice, lithics, and "stone bubbles"—gas pockets trapped in rock and lined with tiny crystals. The diverse ecosystem supports Ponderosa pines, Douglas firs, sycamores, and desert plants, creating a biological transition zone unique to this riparian corridor.
For those seeking adventure beyond the main attraction, the trail connects to the more challenging Whitewater Trail #207, leading deeper into the wilderness. This entire area once served as a sanctuary for Native Americans, including Geronimo, adding another layer to its remarkable story.
Whether you're fascinated by mining history, engineering achievements, geological wonders, or simply seeking stunning canyon views, the Catwalk Trail delivers an unforgettable experience that bridges New Mexico's rugged past with its preserved natural beauty. Bring proper footwear, water, and your sense of wonder—this hidden gem awaits your discovery.
Here I am at the Catwalk National Recreational Trail located in the Gila National Forest of New Mexico. Really a cool area. Got a picnic area, checked out the signage. Half of it is paved, half not, some difficult sections. But let's take a look at the Catwalk Trail. One of the first things you might be asking is why is this here?
Speaker 1:In the 1800s they did silver mining here this kind of talks about it and the wagon trains took the ore out, took it to Silver City, and the reason they had this here, this here, what they call the catwalk, is because they crushed that ore in the ore crusher and took it by mail. 1889, in Whitewater Canyon, gila, they found silver and gold, attracted by riches. Several mines were developed Let me see on the sign here if you want to pause and read about that. But they had an electric generator and they had to meet the needs of the towns. They had this pipeline that went about three miles up and they had to build another one. That one started in 1893. They had to build another one in 1897. And then they processed the ore at the mill in 1893. They had to build another one in 1897. And then they processed the ore at the mill in 1893. They got to do 75 tons a day of the ore and they closed down in the early 1900s 1913. But they did work the mine until 1942.
Speaker 1:And Diamond Jubilee put this sign up. That was the New Mexico State Society of Daughters of the American Revolution and the New Mexico Society of Children of the American Revolution in cooperation with the Forest Service. You can tell because I thought this was etched on here and I felt it. The bottom part is the White Water Canyon part on the Hila National Forest, but everything else is painted on a picture of the water flames in the mine itself. Let's go down the trail and check it out. I might be able to hear the water flames in the mine itself. Let's go down the trail and check it out. Might be able to hear the water running.
Speaker 1:Whitewater Canyon I guess this is Whitewater Creek. The Apaches made their homes here in the canyon Probably flooded from time to time. You can see where the creek can flow and it only takes a little rain it to fill up like a bathtub and become a foaming torrent and carve the canyon. In the last 40 years there's been 15 major floods. The original trail here was built by the CCC in the 1930s, but it washed away in 2012 and was rebuilt. What we're seeing today is from that rebuild done in the 20-teens. I just came around the corner here so other people hiking. Today it's a beautiful day.
Speaker 1:This trail, for the first half mile is paved, so it's accessible, and the other half is not. You can see they have retaining structures because when it begins to rain from the side of the hills there's a potential for rock fall. They built this reinforced rock wall with wire mesh to protect us. I'm going to continue Interesting views here as you go into the canyon. One thing I did notice there definitely is a concern with rock fall because they have all of these areas here bolted. There's bolts all over this rock face to prevent it from falling, or at least to try to prohibit it from falling. It's probably going to fall. I think that's pretty interesting. Nature is amazing. If this video lifts you up and you're enjoying it, make sure to give it a thumbs up. Let it get out to other people.
Speaker 1:Thanks, this bridge was washed out in the mid-2000s, like well 2012, and water was actually pretty high then. Maybe it was lower at that time. You can see how this stuff is attached onto the rock itself. It's bolted on there and that's pretty amazing that they're able to do that. Let's take a look at what these signs tell us. Stream power they built that three-mile pipeline, which is why the catwalk was created in the first place, to run that steam engine that powered the mill. Pretty cool, engineering Would not have been attempted today, more than likely, because there's other ways they could have done it. But back in those days, late 1800s, that would have been the way to do it, and it was a wooden deal. They called it because of the cat-like balancing skills because it had these wooden planks on there. You can see timbers and bolts hanging from the walls. In the 1890s here's what it looked like the CCC transformed it into a recreation trail and then they replaced it in the 1960s and made it wheelchair accessible in 2003. Of course, as I said before, it was made or rebuilt in 2012 because of the flood, and you can see some old timbers from back in the day. Pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Geologists believe this was formed by volcanic activity. It had several different forms that we can see here in the walls of the canyon as it's worn down with the water. You have pumice, lithics, stone bubbles and ash just in this little area the stone bubbles look like gas bubbles trapped in the rock, outlined with tiny crystals. There's a bunch over here on the wall on the side. Stone bubbles and ash. Just in this little area the stone bubbles look like gas bubbles trapped in the rock, outlined with tiny crystals. There's a bunch over here on the wall On the side we kind of have recessed areas Ash. That's basically finely ground pieces of ash that have been cemented together. Yeah, pumice and sticks. Maybe Some ash right here. Pretty cool, some pumice.
Speaker 1:I'm not a geologist but I can pick out some things. Got all kinds of stuff in this rock face down to the creek. Amazing what water uncovers over time. I think if we had a wheelchair here it would be hard. I'm trying to get my feet wet, but I might not be successful. I might be able to rock hop and not fall. Oh, look at that, I made it. One thing I'm noticing I'm gradually going up, so that's interesting.
Speaker 1:Up we go. Here's some more traditional looking bridges. This one is similar to what they built originally probably recycled plastic. Let's continue. All right, this is awesome low bridge. Watch your head. Got a nice yucca plant there, big guy, let's see what he is got a cross over the creek, the old trail. You can kind of see it up in the trees. Probably can't see it too good because it's in the sun, but it looks closed.
Speaker 1:Going to continue up the creek a little bit further, see how far I can get. Probably not much further. You can see there's some other trails up there. It is closed though. So obey the signage, don't get on the closed trail.
Speaker 1:Beautiful view of the stream here. I can probably cross without getting my feet wet today, like I can do it. I should have brought my hiking poles. Yep, yep, I did it. The water is flowing pretty good. Walkway it's washed out completely. Any place you see this pipe exposed or people have been back here riding on it, graffitiing it like a bunch of goombas. Don't do that. Looks like this landing came all the way down and you had the stairway right there but it washed out and they didn't replace it. Here's an old bridge or a walkway. It would be hard to see in the sunlight, but it kind of looks like a stairway to heaven with the sun right here. It's pretty cool. Somebody's been laying some pipe.
Speaker 1:Ha, so, per the sign, light-colored volcanic rock across the canyon Hard to see in the shadows, but there's light-colored stuff right here and I could say light-colored over there too. They're calling that ash flow tuff. So it's thinner, dark colored layers of sandstone and sedimentary breccia showed in this area at least. Volcanic eruptions deposited ash flow. During intervals, debris was eroded and deposited, forming a discontinuous sandstone layer. So, yeah, you can kind of see from the front here it's more reddish, which is the presence of iron, and then over here you've got more reddish, which is the presence of iron, and then over here you've got more grayish or darker colors, indicating magnetite or biotite, according to the sign. This may be an older sign, that may not be accurate anymore. There may be updated science on this now. But very cool. You can't quite see what I was seeing over there, but there was a bridge right across this gap on top of the creek that I guess long ago washed out. There was the footing on either side, but nothing in the middle and a couple of cables crazy, imagine the force of water that came through here. Over here, on top of this rock, there's a metal bolt, a cable tie, a little hoop. The word I'm thinking of is not really coming to my mind, but anyway, there's that Beautiful.
Speaker 1:Okay, I've officially gone past the end of the catwalk trail and I'm on what's called the Whitewater Trail 207, which I think is the same trail that you is the catwalk trail, but continues on past the catwalk site. Another trail went off to the north. I'm using Natural Atlas and I got this on a trial run for a year, 25% off, which is $29.95. I don't know if I can possibly do that myself to share with my viewers, but I got it from my Life Outdoors and if I can't do it, I'll definitely share the link with you. The reason I wanted to try it is because not only does it map for you, it knows where you are if you download the stuff and will tell you things about your surroundings plants, geologic formations, animals, that type of stuff. How accurate that is remains to be seen, but so far we are hiking for about an hour. It's at about a mile and seven tenths. I'm gonna go a little bit further as far as I can turn around. If you want a separate video, leave a comment.
Speaker 1:Okay, bye, I had to share this because, wow, what a view. Not sure what I'm looking at Mountain range wise but isn't that a pretty view? This trail is a lot more rugged than the catwalk trail. There's pieces of rock. Not sure if this was hauled out here or they broke it up. I imagine they broke it up from the existing rock and made it. It's a gorgeous trail. Definitely put this one on your list.
Speaker 1:So I'm way past the catwalk on the Whitewater Trail which continues behind me. Powerhouse Trail, mom, which is more like an old road, goes up the side of this mountain here to a trailhead which I'm not going to be taking, at least not today. I'm going to walk back to the front where I parked. I realize I did not bring very much to snack on. I brought some craisins and that was about it, and I didn't bring my survival essentials type gear. Not a big deal. I'll get out of here just fine, but not really super smart. But look at this view. This is amazing Quick history lesson in front of me.
Speaker 1:Ponderosa pine Pine trees have needle-like structures, plump like wild hares. Ponderosa bundles of three forms. The needle cluster there, whereas you have a cousin here which, even though it's called Douglas fir, it's hyphenated, so that means it's not a true fir and it has slightly different configuration. So you see it's got more individual needles cones. Let me find one. There's one up here. This is a younger tree. I always like to say that the Douglas fir cones are giving the bird.
Speaker 1:Got a tree down here across the path. It's easy to step over it, but I was going to mark it with my natural atlas. Here's another Doug fir and we might have some. No, I don't see any cones just yet, but look at this guy. This is a nice thick sycamore tree. Typically we see cottonwoods which are similar, but I don't think they're very closely related. There are both trees but I think they're in different families.
Speaker 1:But we're down here by the Whitewater Creek, walking back out, and there you see some more water loving plants, douglas fir cones not the best example, but you can see it. Has that little prickle, doesn't hurt, but it's a identifying characteristic. It looks like the middle finger going up. So I've identified doug Douglas fir from other conifers. In undergrad we had classes where we'd look at different plant structures to identify them, including cones, twigs and leaves, along with a growth form. Got some chola I'm not sure of the pronunciation Some agave, a wide variety of stuff.
Speaker 1:I'll have to verify this after I get out of here today because I don't have internet service, maybe the sycamores that are out here. There's some more that I'm seeing. They have that slick looking bark, that kind of sloughs off but makes it real, real smooth and they are not unlike a cottonwood. Here's a really big one over the trail. If they have been around, I certainly haven't seen them. I'm going to have to dig into my coursework to remember all the things about sycamores, but they're pretty prominent where I went to college in East Texas. In the eastern and central US you've got sycamores everywhere. Pretty crazy. If you look at the bark, it's a kind of very thin bark that sloughs off and you get these little smooth like this one over here. You get that kind of smooth trunk. Isn't that interesting Really?
Speaker 1:My only snack I brought on this hike was craisins, which are dried cranberries. They're pretty good, but I sure would like something more substantial. But until I get back to the truck, this is what I got Dried cranberries, sugar and refined sunflower oil. Okay, I'm almost back to the catwalk trail. This is Trail Junction. This trail is tougher than I anticipated. Going on the whitewater Trail behind me Keeps going into the Gila Wilderness, but I didn't make it that far.
Speaker 1:Another trail, though, you can take and explore Gold Dust Trail, number 41. I'll follow 207 back to the catwalk area. Not sure what this sign said, but it was something important. Might be a little hard to see him. There's a little lizard right there on the edge of the rock. I believe it's a western fence lizard, but I could be wrong. Got some more pipe hanging out right down here. It's crazy. We're back to where we left the end of the catwalk trail, more or less. I feel a little bit better now, as I can probably get back to my truck pretty quickly because it's pretty flat now and on nice level terrain. But I think it's pretty flat now and on nice level terrain. But I think it's pretty interesting that they turned this from a mining project and they made it into a recreational trail a natural recreational trail, for that matter.
Speaker 1:Now check this out, though I was going to show you this before. Right here in this vicinity you have some old ironworks. There was something right there. Somebody put that in 2009. It doesn't like it's in use anymore. Not really sure what that is, or was Summer 2009,. Katie Cola, anita, nicky, nick, chance and David did all that, so I'm not sure if it was an SCA crew, if you don't know what that is. That's the Student Conservation Association. They do internships for people wanting to work in the natural resource fields.
Speaker 1:Looks like this thing broke quite a while back. It's pretty interesting looking. Here's one footing, here's some pipes over here, and then here's another footing across the way over there. Isn't that wild? Probably with some kind of suspension bridge at one point, because you have these little tie off loops here with some old cables and stuff. Wild.
Speaker 1:If you think water is not a powerful force, check out this boulder. That probably was more upright so it could hold the pipes. I don't see how they would make those concrete pillars without it being upright. There is a little bolt. You may not be able to see it clearly, but right below it, on that rock below, there is a bolt. Let me see if I can zoom in and adjust the camera down. That's wild.
Speaker 1:But at some point in the past I'm imagining I don't know when this has been here since the 1890s the water was sufficient enough that it moved. That that's crazy to think about. Even in the 1890s, when you had no heavy equipment whatsoever, you had no really way to get things in here other than probably they moved it by horse and carriage these huge pieces of pipe and other apparati into this canyon to make this pipe for water intake for the ore down there. It's just incredible to think about what an engineering feat it wasn't obvious to you before. You can definitely tell this sucker gets moving. Look at all this debris piled up, all these old logs from who knows how many years. It's crazy, but it provides a little bridge. Walk across on the when the water is manageable.
Speaker 1:Now you can come back to this junction here and make it into kind of a loop and come out over here. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go this way, go up the steps and out this way. That should give a wonderful view of the other side's catwalk and seeing how high it is above. Let's say it's about 40 feet above the creek. Give or take. What do you think? Let me know in the comments. This tree is eating this pole, isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1:Nom, I wanted to show you all this at the beginning but I was interrupted because of the a lot of people. But you have an overview of some things to see in the area. Going back out, you have the Bighorn Campground there in Glenwood, whitewater Picnic Area and Cat catwalk, which is where we are now, a little bit north of that mogollon cooney's tomb. I'm gonna check those out, probably on the way back to where I'm staying close to reserve in the wilderness. You have three prominent mountains there. You got more than that, but three that are on the map west baldy holt and neighbors. There are three prominent mountains there. You've got more than that, three that are on the map West Baldy Holt and Neighbors. So lots of things to check out in the area. It does say on here and I wanted to point that out earlier you don't want to drink the water out of the creek unless you treat it first. It does probably have Giardia in it and other baddies that can make you very sick.
Speaker 1:One thing to think about this was a sanctuary for the native people as late as the 1800s Late 1800s. Geronimo used this as a refuge when he was taking up arms against the United States. This was a place for him to have safety and refuge. And anyway, I hope you enjoyed your journey today. Make sure you pack out all your garbage and stay on the trail.
Speaker 1:I pretty much made it out and I want to show you these benches real quick. I think these are cool design. Right here you've got New Mexico Sun emblem. On there, you got trees, flowing water, and over here you have a similar design the New Mexico in each of the four corners Two on that other one, four on this one. You have trees. Here you have the bridge representing the catwalk and a pepper it looks like it's a chili pepper. How cute.
Speaker 1:Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this today. Hi, how are you good? How are you not too bad? And I hope you enjoy this today. It's a pretty neat spot and, as you saw from my video, you can make it into what you want. Do the easy trail on the catwalk and just do the parts where you don't have to cross into the water or go past that area, or you can go beyond the catwalk area to another spot. That's pretty amazing. I think there's some other cool benches over here. I want to show you before I let you go.
Speaker 1:Well, let me know what you think about this, leave a comment, leave a suggestion, whatever you feel like, let me know. Pretty cool, got some sheep over here bighorn sheep, petroglyph style, with some flowing water through the canyon, more trees. Then over here you have a gate, which I think is cool. That's got some designs on it that it combines everything. How neat. Anyways, don't forget the old thumbs up. If you liked it, think about subscribing to the channel if you want to see more content like this. Until next time, I'll see you on the trail. Bye, bye.
