What Happened in September?
The Dark of the Moon Found Us in a Hot Springs Soak in the Wildwood

Wildwood is a very appropriate name for the site of the 18 – 20 September SunTree event. It is located on some of the very rare plots of private property located inside the vast Gila Wilderness. As most of you know, the Gila Wilderness was the first wilderness area designated in the United States. It was established by the Gila Wilderness Act. It was after the value of protecting wilderness areas was demonstrated that congress revisited the situation and passed The Wilderness Act which allowed for more untouched wilderness areas throughout the United States to be protected as wilderness areas as well. Not all of the areas were wisely chosen, perhaps, but that is not the subject being considered in this newsletter.

If you look at a map of the Gila Wilderness, you will see no roads at all. There is a public highway, however that stabs into the heart of the wilderness. That highway was allowed to allow public access to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. Private land along that highway (NM highway 15) remained private and some businesses have become established along that corridor. One of those is the Wildwood Resort located between the highway and the Gila River. It can be found at the floor of the canyon of the Gila hidden among the natural cliff bottom trees, shrubs, grasses and fauna.

The campers found, over the weekend that even though this is private land, very little clearing has been done to the facility. There are parking areas and open gathering locations in the campground for fire pits, open-air kitchens and picnic tables protected from the rain by a ramada. All of the campers who commented to me, really liked the facility and suggested that we need to make plans to regularly schedule Wildwood events.

The weekend was a great success even though the SunTree staff weather control guru (and noted interpretive dance primo) had some problems in keeping the weather in control. On Saturday, for example, we had just about every form of weather condition that is normal for New Mexico with the exception of snow and sand storms.

On that morning, the campers awoke to a pleasant environment (a great change from the overnight rain that most of us slept through) of pre-dawn mists flowing through the trees down the river valley. Some of that mist obviously came from the hot springs that line the bottom of the canyon, but some of it was natural fog. The campground was a ethereal wonderland with the sound of the early morning sharp sound of the birds high in the overhead ponderosa pines. The fog lifted later and still later the sky became that deep blue that can only be seen at high altitude locations. The sun warmed the campers to the point that after breakfast some decided to take one of the wilderness hiking trails down stream for a few miles. One thing about wilderness hiking trails is that they are relatively safe for nudists to hike with only their hats, boots and maybe a snack or camera. Unfortunately, I now return to my previous comment about the staff weather control guru being slightly out of control that day. Upon reaching a high, very picturesque location overlooking the mountains and canyons, the temperature dropped as did some precipitation. That is not really comfortable for nude hikers. The rain fell harder and then the hikers experienced the thrill of nude hiking in a hail storm. I will stop here and let your imagination continue.

In spite of these setbacks, all (or, at least most) had a great time.

It is unfortunate that our planned houseboat event in cooperation with the Roadrunners did not work out very well. Had I known that this camping trip would turn out as well as it did, I would have issued an invitation to the Roadrunners to join us in the Gila. Well, there is always next year.

October Celestial Events