88 Main St., Pinos Altos, NM, 888-388-4515, bearcreekcabins .
Rates: Vary depending on season, but start at $99 per night for a one-bedroom duplex-style cabin with queen bed in January and go up to $169 for a two-bedroom cabin with king beds June-August and September-December. Rates are for two; each additional person is $10. Each cabin has one parking space; nearby overflow parking on-site.
Stay here if you’re: A dog lover, because they allow them for an additional charge (the folks next to us brought four thankfully well-behaved ones), or a bird lover, because despite the close proximity to two roads that get some traffic, dozens of species call this tree-packed spot home.
It’s close to: The tiny but quaint old mining town of Pinos Altos, 2 minutes up the road, while Silver City is a 6-mile drive. The surrounding Gila National Forest provides plenty of opportunities to hike, mountain bike, fish for trout, bird watch (339 species spotted), horseback ride and pan for gold, and the Gila Cliff Dwellings are about a two-hour drive (slow roads) away.
The rooms are: Slightly cramped but cozy, with TVs upstairs and down and a DVD player attached to one of them in the two-story cabins, as well as wood- burning fireplaces and kitchenettes. Shampoo is supposed to be provided, but they kept giving us two lotions, and no hair dryer in the cabins, but the office says you can borrow one (you might want to bring your own). Each cabin has a porch so you can sit outside and watch the birds and other guests walk their dogs and load and unload their ATVs.
They put all of the money into: Extras such as a communal, enclosed hot- tub room and nice wood patio furniture.
The bottom line: When you look at the place online, it appears to be an idyllic set of cabins nestled in an alpine environment, and the owners are as sweet as can be. The reality is that it’s the luck of the draw with your duplex mates, whom you can hear on the other side of the walls, and the amount of traffic going to Pinos Altos and Gila. Still, the other options in the area are the also-noisy motels of Silver City.
Kyle Wagner
