This is where I took myself today to be “cured.” It’s Forest Rd. 437, at this point past Garcia Park and heading down toward Valle Escondido. Definitely up there, though. At this location, things look positively civilized. This spot here is about 9,600 feet in elevation. The highest point I reached on the drive was !0,064 feet, reading from the contour lines. I really like being at that altitude, high in every sense of the word.
Chilly too, with a little snow in the shady places
The best part of the drive is the 13 miles from Talpa to Garcia Park. And that three-mile stretch between the junction with Rd. 438 and Garcia Park, hoo boy… I’d rate it as passable with a 2WD pickup, but probably not with your car. Not one you cared about, anyway. There were a couple of hideous dips and at least one spring-fed water hazard, not to mention driving along the edge of a cliff with sharp turns and more than a few rocks the size of cinder blocks. Not at all like pictured here! Beautiful, though. Every time I got out of the truck on the lower stretches, I heard the Rio Chiquito. Whenever I got out after I’d climbed a ways, I heard the wind in the pines. I was on the road for over two hours and never saw another vehicle.
And BTW, an ‘87 Ford F-150 with oversize 6-ply tires is just about perfect for this kind of work. It never skipped a beat or gave me a scare. The road did, but hey, that’s why I came here.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
thanks for sharing that ride – very interesting. would love to retire in NM one of these days.
You’re very welcome. But be warned: this is NOT a place to “retire,” but to blow that notion all to hell.
On the other hand, the sun does shine a lot.
Retirement to me would be the joy to watch the red color of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains during sunrises and sunsets, especially when those mountains are covered with snow. The peaceful rosy light dancing on the mountaintops tease the mind with mystical vibrations, erasing the day’s thoughts of mundane trivia away.
i enjoyed reading between the lines of this post, as well as browsing many of your photos – you are in the pursuit of those mystical vibrations drawing you away from the daily noise where you can momentarily escape into the sounds of silence, deep, where alpha rhythms oscillate within your mind at a frequency of 10 hertz and your primary visual cortex receives and processes sensory nerve impulses from your eyes …. The oh so peaceful rosy light dancing on the mountaintops
Please share more of those peaceful adventures!
David, I’ve been to Maine, and you have mountains too. And waves crashing on the rocks!
The reason I say do NOT “retire” here is that the beauty is so strong, it’s terrible. In the fearsome sense, I mean, because of the weight of the corresponding shadow. Things you never knew were there get pried open and dumped out here. Who knows, I might not be able to stand it forever and have to move to where I can spend my last years looking out on something milder with iced tea and cowflops.
That said, you sound like you could fit in here some day.
And I’m taking your request quite seriously. Might even work the adventures into podcasts.