The course today was 77 miles from Taos to Santa Fe mostly using the Taos High Road scenic highway. The amount of climbing - 6900' - wasn't too bad by itself but on a per-mile basis was higher than any other day. The combination of climbs and descents was more like the roads I ride in my Madison County NC home. And especially the tiny road we took out of Rio Chiquito reminded me the Cutshall Town road in the Shelton Laurel area.
Between the climb to over 8500' going out of Taos, to Nambe where the elevation was 5800', we crossed four of the seven NM life zones. From highest to lowest: mixed conifer, ponderosa pine, piñon-juniper woodlands, and grasslands.
First rest stop at 8500':
An inquiring mind:
After descending out of the Carson National Forest lands we went through several small communities and the Picuris Pueblo. Along the way I saw a couple of land grant signs like this one:
The Spanish/Mexican land grant history is pretty interesting. Although the Las Trampas grant no longer exists as an administrative entity, about 35 other grants in NM do still have acreage and boards of trustees. The land grant system allocated large tracts of land, providing title of small valley parcels to each individual in the community but placing the majority of land into a common trust for the benefit of all. Needless to say when this system intersected with the US takeover of New Mexico in 1846, titles and such got sketchy and, as typically happens, the poorer part of the population got ripped off through legal shenanigans. In the case of Las Trampas this happened around 1900. Most of the common land ended up owned by a timber company which traded it to the US Government in the 1920s for land in the Grants NM area. The US Government included the Las Trampas common land into the Carson National Forest which is what we see today.
As we cut across the valleys carved by small west-flowing tributaries of the Rio Grande, the southern end of the Sangre de Cristo mountains came into sight. As I stopped to take a photo the most important vehicle of the tour came by: the lunch truck!
Clear shot of Pecos Baldy and the Truchas Peaks:
The ridges were interspersed with wetter bottomlands:
If the ridge was high enough we'd get into the Ponderosa Pine life zone. It smelled SO GOOD in the morning sun. This is the olfactory delight that pine air fresheners are trying but failing to reach.
When are we going to get scratch-and-sniff screens to read blogs on?
More bottomlands and a view of the Truchas Peaks from farther south:
From the PeakFinder app:
Northeastern view:
Southeastern view
After riding through a small group of adobe homes, we plunged off the high plateau. The sign half way down the hill schooled me that I'd just been through the town of Truchas:
Looking across the Rio Grande valley to the Jemez Mountains, the most prominent feature of which is the Valles Caldera, an ancient volcano. The sand-colored land in the mid-range is the Nambe badlands:
At the bottom of the descent from Truchas we turned onto a dinky road to cross the Rio Chiquito which had a nice looking valley:
The dinky road:
A settlement along the road
Bottomlands below the settlement:
For perspective, the Jemez Mountains and Nambe badlands again. You can see this picture was taken from a lot lower elevation.
An erosion feature in the Nambe Badlands:
After taking that photo, I arrived at the lunch stop and partook of an egg salad sandwich. From there the road continued to descend to the west until reaching the main artery - US Highway 285. And from there the route rode up the US 285 frontage road for 8 miles. The main attraction on that stretch of road these days seems to be casinos. Back in the day it was Camel Rock, which I'm happy to report hasn't fallen over yet:
Since I was familiar with the roads around Santa Fe from having lived there, I departed from the PacTour route in Tesuque by taking the quaint Bishops Lodge Road into town instead of more highway frontage. I thought the new Tesuque Elementary School was striking because it looks great and its new. I sure wish more school systems would follow this example and build nicer looking buildings.
At the top of the Bishops Lodge Road climb, I rejoiced as I caught sight of our old stomping grounds - the hills behind Santa Fe. Monte Luna (left) and Monte Sol (right)
Mount Atalaya:
From the PeakFinder app which does not use the Spanish designations:
All in all a very nice day in the saddle.
