The top of Enchanted Mesa is inaccessible by normal means. Legend has it that once the Acomas lived there, and there are Indian ruins up on the isolated rim. A terrific rain and lightning storm, one summer day, sent huge waterfalls down the sides of the mesa, tearing away large blocks of sandstone, and destroyed the trail to the top, a series of narrow zigzag ledges and toeholds in crevasses. Thus the Acoma Indians moved a few miles to the southwest to Acoma, onto the top of another sheer cliff, a rock fortress carved in Zuni Sandstone and capped by Dakota Sandstone.
Talk about wide open spaces ... around the Enchanted Mesa
Southwest of Grants, the forested Zuni Mountains rise, bordered on the north by a valley cut in Triassic redbeds and on the east by the recent black basalt flows. The hurrying traveler will follow Interstate 40 to Gallup around the north edge of the Zuni dome, flanked on the north by the spectacular pink, red, brown, and gray cliffs of Jurassic and Cretaceous sandstones. If one has time, take the low road, State Highways 53 and 36, around the southern edge of the Zunis. For almost twenty miles, passing through San Rafael, the paved highway parallels the west edge of the Grants black basalt flow; then up over low ridges and past black cinder cones toward El Morro. In the lava tunnels, perpetual ice stays hidden from the sun; these can be visited at Ice Caves.
El Morro, Inscription Rock, with its towering cliffs of Zuni Sandstone, overlooks peaceful green valleys; farther west, the red and brown sandstones are carved into many mesas and buttes near Zuni Pueblo. Then northward to Gallup, swinging around the west edge of the Zuni Mountains, the roller-coaster highway, State 36, cuts through ponderosa pine country, bordered by Cretaceous brown sandstones, black shales, and coal beds.
Northeast of Gallup eight miles is Kit Carson’s Cave, a gaping door on the face of a massive cliff of Jurassic sandstone. A pool of cool water lies along its floor. The three-and-a-half-mile drive north of Interstate 40 is through a vast broken country of sandstone spires, pyramids, cliffs, and ledges carved in the Jurassic rocks. Near Gallup, the drab coal-bearing Cretaceous beds form the landscapes, but westward near the Arizona line, erosion has cut down again to the brilliantly colored Jurassic rocks, and Interstate 40 is escorted westward into the Grand Canyon State by cliffs of white and pink sandstone.
Californians crossing New Mexico in the winter are likely to travel U.S. Highway 70-80 (Interstate 10) eastward. New Mexico is entered just before Steins Pass, which is channeled through the tan and green volcanic rocks of the Peloncillo Mountains. Then down across the mud and salt marshes of Alkali Flats lying in the Animas Valley and up onto the north edge of the Pyramid Mountains into Lordsburg. Mine dumps dot the Pyramids, and the ghost mining town of Shakespeare lies amid the purple volcanic rocks.
Eastward from Lordsburg for 118 miles are the Antelope Plains; plains, plains, plains. Steers graze on the sparse grass, yucca clumps border the highway, and here and there sand dunes flee before the restless winds. Mountain ranges, like islands on the sea of grass, yucca, and creosote bush, rise in the distance. West of Deming, the low Victorio Mountains lie south of the highway, made up of dolomite, limestone, and andesite ridges. Southeast of Deming are the lofty Florida Mountains, their northern toe crossed by Interstate 10. Volcanic hills dot the landscape east of Las Cruces, Sierra de las Uvas’ purple slopes to the north, and the Potrillo Mountains and Mount Riley to the south. The latter are part of a spectacular volcanic field where black cinder cones and basalt flows cover hundreds of square miles, and craters such as Kilbourne Hole are sunk below the plains.
The descent into the Rio Grande Valley is awesome, especially if the late afternoon sun is dancing on the spires and cliffs of the Organ Mountains to the east. From across the brown plains, Interstate 10 winds down into the green Mesilla Valley, a different world of cotton and alfalfa fields, pecan and cottonwood groves, and red-tile-roofed Spanish homes. The view of the Organ Mountains alone is worth the trip.
At Las Cruces, a city booming on cotton, rockets, and tourists, Interstate 10 turns south to parallel the east side of the Rio Grande Valley down to Texas and El Paso. If one prefers a quiet scenic route, State Highway 28 winds its way along the west side of the Valley amid fields and groves, through peaceful villages, to end at the bridge over the Rio Grande on the edge of El Paso. Here, to the south, is El Cristo Rey, a cone of massive andesite, flanked by steeply tilted beds of limestone and shale, Early Cretaceous in age, cut in two by the New Mexico-Mexico border. Atop the peak is a 29-foot-high, 40-ton, limestone statue of Christ; a winding path leads upward from the base for those strong enough of limb to make the climb. Beyond, to the south, Ciudad Juarez lies, famous for its bordertown flavor, markets, cathedrals, and bull rings.