Page 12 - Volume 3 - Walks In The Black Range

3. Turkey Run/Diamond Creek -
Forest Trails 42 & 40 Contributed by Devon Fletcher
In mid-July, quite a few years ago, we headed out for Turkey Run, a small, remote creek that forms the northeast border of the Aldo Leopold Wilderness. It was, and of course still is, a long drive from Las Cruces. NM-59 is winding, but paved. Once we got of NM-59 at the Lookout Mountain turn-off, the last ten or so miles of our drive was on increasingly lower standard roads (FR 226, FR 500). Eventually we found a suitable spot to set up camp not too far from Turkey Run Well. In the morning I saw elk along the road. One evening we saw a mama bear and 2 cubs scamper up a nearby hillside. We hiked up the road with our dogs to the springs that are the headwaters of Turkey Run. At the dead end of the Turkey Run Road, we found there is ample room for parking and camping. This is also the trailhead for FT 42 which goes up along a piney side creek to the south. It tops out on ridge a few a hundred feet above Diamond Creek. After passing a usually dry waterfall, the trail zig-zags steeply beneath skinny hoodoos of volcanic rock down to the stream. Two consecutive days we did this short (.75 miles) hike down to tiny Diamond Creek, venturing downstream one day and upstream another on little used FT 40. The creek, beneath firs and pines, with willows crowding its banks, was low. Monsoon rains had yet to swell it to a more pleasing flow. The canyon is very narrow in these uppermost reaches, however, and it can rise very rapidly with a single storm. We relaxed creek side one afternoon, and I fed black flies to the hungry Gila Trout in the shallow pools. Be aware there is still no fishing in this stream, as it protects one of the five recognized pure relict populations of this rare fish.
Since this is wilderness, I don’t think much has changed here, except that the Forest Service has done some trail work on the uppermost reaches of FT 40, which had almost disappeared completely. The roads leading to the trailhead may be a different story. A friend who visited the area back in the Spring of 2016 reported he had to push fallen trees off of FR 500 with his Jeep. Fire, which has altered so much of the Aldo Leopold Wilderness and the Black Range in the 22 years I’ve been coming to the Gila, has not affected this area in recent years.
It was a good trip back then, but because this area is so remote, and requires such a substantial commitment of time, I have not been back in the intervening years. Of course, if they were ever to open up Main Diamond to fishing, I’d probably be out there in a flash. Think of this area not in terms of a day trip, but as place to camp and explore, because once you've made the long drive, you'll want to stay a few days to before heading home.
Turkey Run Well at the red marking.