Day 5: Silver City, NM – Cosmic Campground, NM

We checked out of our cozy hotel after the rest day, still with sore legs but at least replenished for the days ahead. The multi-day Tour of the Gila bicycle race had moved into downtown Silver city for the day with riders completing multiple loops of a 6-block square around downtown. We made our way across the race course and the road started climbing immediately out of town.

After a few miles of climbing we crossed the continental divide and the road began to descend. These morning miles were a breath of fresh air after the first three grueling days of the trip. We were moving quickly and covered the 28 miles to the town of Cliff in a little under two hours. There’s one restaurant in town and we stopped for lunch.

Towns are about every 15-25 miles apart here and often have one store or cafe. There’s a very different feeling from that of southern New Mexico – the influences of Mexico are gone and these towns are more like small-town America.

The road today was hilly but there are no massive climbs like Emory pass two days ago. We continued on, entering Gila National Forest once again and stopped for a break in a picnic area. It’s sunny and warm but the 5000-6000 ft elevation keeps the temperatures from being too miserable.

We had chosen Cosmic Campground as our destination for the evening – it’s a in a designated dark sky sanctuary. There’s no water in the campground so we stocked up in the town of Alma before the final climb of the day. Today we had enough time to set up and cook dinner before things got dark, and we stayed up late looking at and photographing the stars.

Notes from Donald: “Leaving Silver City we got to experience some amazing European-style roads. I had always wanted to go to a dark sky sanctuary so I was excited to spend the night there.”