You have just left the plain and entered the Red River canyon, and it is one of the more abrupt transitions on this loop. Sagebrush and open sky one minute; steep walls, running water and evergreens the next.
The road follows the Red River upstream — which means everything from here to the town of Red River is uphill, and you are climbing hard. Questa is around seventy-five hundred feet. Red River is at eighty-seven hundred. The pass beyond it goes over ninety-eight hundred.
Watch your engine temperature if you're towing anything, and if you are in an older or smaller vehicle, expect it to work. This is real mountain driving.
The forest around you is Carson National Forest — ponderosa pine lower down, giving way to spruce and fir and aspen as you gain elevation. In late September and early October those aspen turn, and the whole Enchanted Circle becomes one of the best fall-colour drives in the American Southwest. If you are here then, you already know; the traffic will have told you.
This canyon is also a well-known fishing corridor. The Red River is stocked, there are pull-outs the whole way up, and you will see people in waders through the trees.
Take these curves gently. There are campgrounds and blind driveways along here, and elk cross this canyon.
Photo: Kent G. Budge · CC0