Still westward into Arizona along U.S. Highway 60 are Springerville, fabulous Salt River Canyon, the mining cities of Globe, Miami, and Superior, and booming Phoenix.
Into this west-central New Mexico country of volcanic peaks and grassy plains comes U.S. Highway 180 from Deming northwestward. Along the scenic, winding route are City of Rocks, the copper smelter at Hurley, Santa Rita’s huge open-pit copper mine, famous Silver City, colorful canyons of the Gila and San Francisco rivers, and, crossed by passes or bordering all routes, the rugged rhyolite, andesite, and basalt ledges and cliffs.
From El Paso to Raton Pass, 515 miles, U.S. Highway 85 (Interstate 25) crosses New Mexico from south to north, from Mexico to Colorado. As far as La Bajada Hill, between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, the highway parallels the Rio Grande. Northward from El Paso, past Las Cruces to Radium Springs and old Fort Selden, the green Mesilla Valley borders the route; then through Selden Canyon into the Hatch Valley near San Diego Mountain, and along the west side of the bold cliffs of the Caballo Mountains, past Caballo Reservoir to Truth or Consequences (old Hot Springs). Eastward lies Elephant Butte Dam and reservoir; the road cuts across alluvial plains to the west of the Rio Grande all the way to Albuquerque, with the mountains to the west the San Mateo, Magdalena, Socorro, and Ladron and to the east, the Fra Cristobal, Los Pinos, and Manzano.
Intersecting Interstate 40 at Albuquerque, the Pan-American Central Highway, Interstate 25 crosses to the east side of the Rio Grande, the sheer cliffs of the Sandia Mountains to the east and the distant dark green Jemez Mountains to the northwest. Crossing Galisteo Creek northeast of Santo Domingo Pueblo, Interstate 25 turns toward the northeast, climbs La Bajada Hill, onto the green plains sloping from Santa Fe. Santa Fe, the ancient capital city, is nestled on the edge of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Southeastward and eastward, U.S. Highway 85 (to be Interstate 25 here) rolls, skirting the southern end of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, wedged in by the north-facing cliffs of Glorieta Mesa, through Glorieta Pass, where the Confederates lost the battle for the Southwest, across the upper reaches of Rio Pecos, and around to Las Vegas. Then in straight lines across the western edges of the Great Plains where they lap up onto the Sangre de Cristo ranges, through Wagon Mound and Springer to Raton. The climb up-canyon to Raton Pass, through roadcuts of brown sandstone, shale, and coal, leads into Colorado, with a view of much of southern Colorado from the Pass.
Many routes lead northward from ancient Santa Fe. U.S. Highway 285 crosses the high divide near Bishop’s Lodge, follows Rio Tesuque to Pojoaque, crosses the Rio Grande near Espanola amid varicolored badlands cut in the Santa Fe rocks, then heads northward on the black basalt plateau toward Colorado. Black Mesa, a volcanic neck, lies south of Espanola, overlooking the green Rio Grande Valley; atop this height, Pueblo Indians once defied Spanish guns until they starved. Northward, near Tres Piedras, the Ortega and Brazos ranges tower to the west, the perlite-rich hills of No Agua lie to the northeast, and across the basalt plains cut by the Rio Grande, the lofty, snow-capped Sangre de Cristo Mountains loom.
At Pojoaque, State Road 4 leads westward, across Otowi bridge of the Rio Grande, then winds up into the canyon and mesa country bordering the Jemez Mountains. Herein lie Bandelier and Los Alamos, one with ancient abandoned pueblos, the other the atomic city. Farther west, the road crosses the rim of an ancient volcano into Valle Grande, the crater of that volcano—some 16 miles across. When this volcano spewed forth hot ashes about a million years ago, the volcanic dust was wind-blown as far as Kansas and Nebraska!
At Espanola, U.S. Highway 84 breaks away to the northwest to follow Rio Chama in its canyon carved from redbeds near Abiquiu, past the interesting museum at Ghost Ranch—where bones of Triassic dinosaurs are collected—Echo Amphitheater, El Vado Lake, through Chama, and on up into the San Juan Mountains country of southern Colorado.
Near Espanola, U.S. Highway 64 splits off to the northeast; this is the high road of north-central New Mexico. Paralleling the canyon of the Rio Grande to Pilar, the highway climbs up onto the Taos plateau to Taos, turns eastward to cut through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains over Palo Flechado Pass, down into the grassy Moreno Valley to Eagle Nest and Eagle Nest Lake, then eastward again following the narrow canyon of the Cimarron River to Cimarron and Raton. A loop trip northward from Eagle Nest on State 38 goes through ghost town Elizabethtown, over Red River Pass, and down the varicolored canyon of Red River to Questa, before turning southward toward Taos.
(U.S. Park Service)
Subdivision living, pueblo style—at Aztec National Monument