Gila Descending: A Southwestern Journey

by M.H. Dutch Salmon

Herein is the remarkable story of a 200-mile wilderness journey down the Gila River of New Mexico and Arizona. Traveling partly on foot, mostly by canoe, the author was accompanied by a hound dog and a tomcat. His trip is replete with whitewater thrills, and angling for trout, bass, and catfish; ruminations on the wilderness ethic, and the antics of two companions who promote humor, exasperation, and love. But besides being a modern-day excursion into the natural world, Gila Descending is a personal odyssey as well; and little by little that story, too, is told.


"Gila Descending is a joy to read. M. H. Salmon and his feisty animal co-pilots have enough chutzpah to keep us laughing; enough literary audacity to delight and educate; and enough love of land, water, and wilderness to stir the most hardened conscience."--John Nichols




". . . a delightful book. No reader could ask for a finer river to read about than the Gila, or a better companion to explore it with than M. H. Salmon. May the Government (ugh!) and God (we hope) long preserve them both."--Edward Abbey


"As you join the author--and his coyote hound and tomcat--on a float trip down the Gila, you will find a unique companion: a hunter with an informed environmental conscience; a fisherman with the sense to know that catfish are as good as trout; a wry observer whose prose owes more to local speech and the elegant essays of Aldo Leopold than to the high-tech fodder in the yuppie monthlies. Above all, he is a passionate and original defender of wilderness with its hair on."--Steve Bodio, "Bodio's Review," Gray's Sporting Journal

Genres: Travel

224 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1995

Reviews

[River James · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed it, but you must know that I deeply love the Gila River and have run nearly 300 miles from the Cliff Dwellings in New Mexico past the State Prison complex in Florence, AZ. (Yup, in the canal!)
Gila Reading:
River of the Sun by Ross Calvin
Gila, The Life and Death of an American River by Gregory McName
The Gila River of the Southwest by Edwin Corle
Gila Descending A Southwestern Journey by M.H. Salmon

[loafingcactus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early in the book, the author avoids interacting with someone in the distance because he is uncertain if they are an adult woman or a girl. And here you know you have arrived at the anti-Edward Abbey, something off the great western tradition. Throughout the book the author uses situations to bring up other people he admires and explain how they are the greatest. He’s just a guy with a canoe and a cat and a dog doing something very rarely accomplished.

As with many US rivers that were at one time navigable, even if only with a canoe and sometimes walking, I don’t think this adventure from the 1980s could be recreated now. I read the book while visiting one of the communities mentioned in the book, and it was a great jumping off point for the locals to tell me about the times described.

Even though rural New Mexico communities look baked in, New Mexico as a whole is one of the highest states for people living here who were not born here, and the area covered in the book is one of the highest in the nation. People moved here in the 1970s and stayed long enough that they’ve gone through an entire economic cycle – the time mentioned in the book were the heyday, and now this area is fairly poor despite the copper mines that dot the region, almost the only business. The book, despite intending to focus outside civilization, nonetheless captured a times that has passed both in nature and in civilization.

[Carli · Rating 4 out of 5]

"...I kept closing my eyes. Every time I did I was back on the river."

I recently moved away from the Sierra del Gila and this book and that line comfort me. I've hiked through beaver dams on the Gila, had trout swim by my legs, soaked in its hot springs, and even kayaked the Middle Box on a misadventure with friends in 2024. It's a special river, and indeed does have many catfish.

[Denise · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story of an interesting trip down the Gila River by an avid fisherman accompanied by a tomcat and a hound dog. The writing is mediocre but there are some funny and poignant moments.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everyone in this part of the world is supposed to read this book. Now that I have I don't need to. Some lovely portraits of the natural world but a lot of killing and consuming of fish as well.