The first big fire of the year started today at Cherry Creek Campground. This is in the Black Range below Signal Peak. So for right now I wouldn’t count on the Signal Peak Route being open. Winds are blowing west at ~ 35 mph with gusts in the high 40’s and low 50’s. It’s not looking good at this time.
PDP
Here are some links for a detour around the Signal Peak Fire area. The first file is a link to a waypoint file in gpx format. Waypoints are for all the turns at intersections. Second link is to a map.
http://www.bearcreeksurvey.com/Data/Signal.zip
http://www.bearcreeksurvey.com/Data/Signal%20Detour.pdf
bearcreek
Silver City will be the death of the Gila Wilderness as we know it. Happy Mother’s Day, feckless humanity.
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Why does Smokey the Bear only show up on signboards and why does he only speak English? It’s a holiday weekend, the winds are blowing at 50mph, the forest is tinder dry, and the forest service campgrounds are open for business. Barbecues will happen. Who is there to inform, monitor, and enforce? Why no one, of course. Which would cost the US taxpayer less money - staffing campgrounds and other “hot spots” at times such as this with small teams who can keep the public in line and respond immediately to violations and hazards, or leaving these areas defenseless and then calling in the helicopters, water tankers, and massive firefighting resources after we’ve already lost an ever-expanding portion of our national heritage? Get Smokey off the advertising circuit, get him out of the FS district parking lot, out of his little secret society of ensconced federal employees who loathe all types of public interaction, and into the goddamn woods where he can be the first line of defense against a feckless public that will ultimately destroy the Gila Wilderness as surely as it litters the roadside approach with beer cans and fast food wrappers. Get to work Smokey!
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