Make Questa your quest in the southern Rockies
The small New Mexico town is becoming a bigger recreation hub, with big mountains to the east and the Rio Grande Gorge to the west.
Who would have thought a small town in northern New Mexico would one day be at the leading edge of fast-moving change in the Western U.S.
That’s right where Questa, N.M., finds itself. Read the story in this tweet to understand what’s going on.
Theses are the changes as I see them:
1 — A rapidly shifted economy, from the closing of a huge mine to outdoor-based recreation.
2 — More demand for that recreation due to the covid pandemic.
3 — More localized weather danger due to climate change, as evidenced from the damage in the tweet below by the recent huge storm that also brought prairie fires to Kansas and the first December tornados to Minnesota. Yes, powerful winds have hit New Mexico before, but only the willfully blind would not see the punch and reach of this storm as being connected to something bigger.
From the New York Times (referring to Wednesday’s storm):
Questa is a small city of 2,000 at 7,500 feet above sea level, 25 miles north of Taos on S.R. 522. Regardless of which side of small rural Western cities’ politics you come down on, the Questa area can more than occupy a week of vacation time.
Many visitors head east from Questa for 12 miles to the summer and winter resort of Red River, a gem of a small town tucked in the southern Rockies with all the recreation of a Colorado resort and none of the drawbacks.
But Questa has two outdoor packages of its own: the 21,000-acre Latir Peaks Wilderness in the Cardon National Forest/Sangre de Cristo Range to the east and the Rio Grande del Norte BLM National Monument to the west. The 243,000-acre national monument has ample room to roam with unlimited boondocks camping away from the small parts that are developed.
Five small BLM campgrounds with 26 sites total line the rim of the Rio Grande Gorge Wild River section. Trails tempt hikers and fishermen to the river 600 feet below, while mountain bikers stay up top. Commercial raft trips begin down river where roads reach the bottom of the gorge. This can be big whitewater in spring, so keep that in mind.
The Rio Grande area is best in spring and fall, the Latir Peaks in summer, add all the snow sports around Red River, and Questa is a year-round destination.
Road and trail ATV riders keep the route to Latir Peaks busy, but hikers and backpackers have the wilderness to themselves. A big 18-mile lollipop loop from 9,160-foot Cabresto Lake puts ambitious day hikers and overnight backpackers high into scenic mountain tundra, with six named 12,000-foot peaks to bag with 5,700 feet of gain for the loop. Just watch out for spring and summer lightning storms, and the occasional freakish windstorm that should come with ample forecast.
Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks draw lots of peak-bagging attention, but the smaller peaks of New Mexico have similar scenery without the crowds, and are a whole lot easier to summit.
Questa is only just beginning to develop upscale tourist amenities, but Taos and Red River have those covered not far away.