Hiking in Saddlerock Canyon

We're now about halfway through our time in Silver City, NM and we've been seeking out hikes in the nooks and crannies surrounding the area. Saddlerock Canyon Road is about 15 miles NW of town, and offers big boulders and a riparian area at the edge of the Gila National Forest.

We didn't find any defined trails, but instead hiked our way up two streambeds and explored around some big boulders. There are some pictographs in the canyon but none we saw on this visit were photo worthy. There are lots of interconnecting forest roads in the area for more exploration and you could easily scramble up some of the boulder strewn hills for views of the canyon.

To access the stream beds, we drove down the dirt forest road, about a mile or so from Hwy 180, until it was blocked by a gate and a sign that said not passable by full size vehicles. After parking and walking through the gate we encountered a sign stating this was a riparian restoration area.

As you'll see in the photos, it was a pretty but cold day! Temps were in the low 50's with an off and on breeze. We'd had snow flurries the day before and the mountains well North of town were covered in snow! No pics of those though, they were still shrouded with clouds on this day.

The most amazing thing about these streambeds we walked up were the incredible variety of stone and colors that made up the canyon walls.

From this sharp, multi-hued rock...

...to sections of giant, round granite boulders!

I wish I had a geology background and knew what caused all these colors!

Color, color everywhere!

The entrance to the second streambed...technicolor!

Here's what the rest of the canyon looked like as we drove back out towards the highway.

And last but not least, our critter sighting for the day!