West of us here is the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument, and the piece of it closest to this road is called Wild Rivers — the place where the Red River comes in and joins the Rio Grande, both of them eight hundred feet down in the rock.
It is a spectacular and slightly unnerving landscape. You drive out across flat sagebrush plain with volcanic cones on the horizon, park, walk a few steps to a rim, and there is a double canyon at your feet with two rivers meeting in the bottom of it. There are trails down. They are steep, they are hot in summer, and coming back up at seven thousand feet is harder than the map suggests.
This is high desert volcanic country. Those symmetrical hills on the skyline are extinct volcanoes — Ute Mountain is the big one to the north — and the whole plain you are looking at is built out of the lava they and their neighbours poured out.
It is also outstanding wildlife country. Bighorn sheep live on the gorge walls, pronghorn work the plain, and the canyon is a raptor highway — golden eagles, red-tails, prairie falcons, and in winter, bald eagles down along the river.
The monument was designated in twenty-thirteen after a long local push. If you have half a day spare on this trip, the turnoff is signed from Questa and it is one of the best-value detours in northern New Mexico.
For us, though, the road now swings east and starts to climb — and the country changes completely.
Photo: mypubliclands · Public domain