Sunday June 8 and Monday June 9 2024

June 05, 2024

Sunday June 8 and Monday June 9 2024

Saturday June 8

We didn’t move too far from Santa Fe, just 2 hours north to the town of Taos. Taos is a mini version of Santa Fe, lots of Adobe style homes and a very active arts community. A bit of an aging hippie vibe, lots of older guys with long hair…and lots of cannabis shops, reminds me of Ottawa!

The campground we had reserved was 20 minutes east of town and was an RV park instead of a state park. I was unable to find a state park with the services I wanted that was close to Taos so we ended up at Taos Canyon RV Campground. The facility has only 20 campsites and we lucked out with a spot off in the top corner of the campground all by ourselves, quite private.

We settled in, and realized the park’s Wi-fi was not living up to the owner’s promise of being able to stream movies. As there were no walking trails attached to the park we took a short drive to Angel Fire Resort a short drive from the campground. The resort has a very nice Alpine ski facility and an 18 hole golf course. Ski season is over but they are set up for downhill mountain biking which makes good use of the facilities in the off season. We also checked out the golf course, very nice, so we booked a round for Monday morning. The weather forecast is not great for Monday, so if it rains we’ll default to a yoga class in Taos!

Had a quiet evening back at the ranch.

Sunday June 9

Started the day with a rim trail hike along the Rio Grande River Canyon. The trailhead was a few miles west of Taos, we found it easily and parked our vehicle at the trailhead which is also home to a Sunday market, mostly Indian trinkets and wares, not a farmers market.

The Rio Grande is quite the river…it has been ranked in the top 10 rivers of the world that are in peril. The problem, like with the Colorado River is there’s not enough water for all the thirsty users along the system. The Rio Grande’s headwaters are in southwestern Colorado and it flows 1,900 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. By the time it gets to the US/Mexico border, there is barely a trickle left. We saw for ourselves at Big Bend NP, the riverbed there was dry. There has been a persistent drought since 2020 which doesn’t help, but it is unnerving to see a dry river bed on a river that historically has always flowed.

Anyway, in northern New Mexico the Rio Grande still flows and has carved an incredibly deep canyon over many millions of years. We enjoyed our hike along the rim which had multiple view points with the best one at the end of the trail. We returned along the same track.

Went back to Taos for a few shopping stops then embarked on an afternoon drive on the “Enchanted Circle” route. It’s a nice ride around Wheeler Mountain, the highest peak in New Mexico and 13,161 feet ASL. As part of the tour we drove up to the Taos ski center, quite impressive with over 4,000’ of vertical drop and lots of above tree line bowls. Taos is known for its powder, the dry air and high elevations help with that.

The Enchanted Circle route turned out to be very scenic, but unfortunately the clouds which had been building all day opened up and rain started falling early in the tour. At one point there was a micro burst and we encountered a nasty bout of hail…luckily not to large and no damage done. We returned back to camp in time for tea as the rain continued to sprinkle for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening.