Explore Archives: Outside Santa Fe

Calvin Tafoya, CEO of Santa Clara Development Corp., has never forgotten May 2000, when the Cerro Grande Fire raced from Bandelier National Monument through Los Alamos.

The fire burned 354 homes in Los Alamos and 29,00 acres of forested land. The silt and debris from the ridge tops washed down into the pristine waters of Santa Clara Canyon.

By Justine Moore, as told to Devon Jackson
My first impulse for a secret place is to say “any rooftop in New Mexico.” When I go back there, I like to just get up on a roof and take everything in. But one of the most magical places for me is Staurolite Canyon. It’s near Taos. I’m not going to tell you exactly where it is, because when you find something special, you want to guard it. There’s another Staurolite Canyon near Hondo Canyon, but this one’s different.

Area showered in much-needed precipitation

Nearly an inch of rain showered on the Santa Fe area Wednesday through early Thursday, providing a little relief for a bone-dry year in which precipitation levels have been way off normal.

Snow was falling in other parts of northern New Mexico, mostly at elevations higher than 8,000 feet. A location just outside Angel Fire and Sandia Crest in Albuquerque’s Sandia Mountains had received as much as 4 inches through Thursday morning, while Red River got an inch, according to the National Weather Service in Albuquerque.

“This has been the first significant rainfall you’ve had since the snowfall of April,” noted Tim Shy...

In the low shadow of the Ortiz Mountains along Highway 14, huddled into the nook of a shallow valley, lies the tiny village of Madrid. Few trees survive here on this rocky, parched land. In fact, besides the piñons and junipers dotting surrounding hillsides and the spindly-armed cholla growing everywhere, the landscape is virtually barren. Once a mining town, Madrid’s soil has been severely degraded for over a century. Piles of mining tailings towering at one end of the greenbelt attest to that. Grazing and flash flood erosion have also taken their toll. In the unrelenting glare of mid-afternoon sun, Madrid more closely resembles a moonscape. This foreboding environment is the last pla...

Between the hubbub of Albuquerque’s big-city attitude and the enthusiastic growth of Rio Rancho’s sprawl, sits a rural oasis. In Corrales, abundant cottonwoods arch over bands of green and follow cattail-lined acequias. Horses flick their tails against buzzing flies in yards that seem to go on forever. Million-dollar mansions with intricate landscaping abut mobile homes where chickens cluck and peck–unaware of the pressures of development.

Corrales’s pastoral beauty and its unobstructed views of the Sandia mountains are threatened. Its very essence depends on a mix of farmland, open space and residential use. Yet as the cities surrounding it grow, Corrales has had to face...