The Bisti/De-Na-Zin (pictured) and Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah wilderness areas in northwest New Mexico offer some of the most psychedelic landscapes in the country.
Hikers pass through the narrows of the East Fork Box on the way to a waterfall on Tuesday, July 4, 2023. An 11-mile stretch of the East Fork of the Jemez River received a National Wild and Scenic River designation in 1990.
Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep graze at 12,000 feet atop Penitente Peak in the Pecos Wilderness. The animals’ signature spiral horns can weight up to 30 pounds.
Fall colors at the Big Tesuque Trailhead on Hyde Park Road in October 2023. Santa Fe National Forest Scenic Byway is one of 25 designated scenic byways in the state.
Alamo Canyon as seen from Upper Alamo Trail in Bandelier National Monument. While Bandelier’s Pueblo Loop Trail is frequently bustling with people, its backcountry trails see little traffic.
Trail runners head down Penitente Peak with Santa Fe Baldy in the distance. Mountain peaks can be a good place to make new acquaintances with fellow nature lovers.
San Ysidro Trials, a little over an hour’s drive southwest of Santa Fe, offers opportunity for exploration through slot canyons and around tinajas, which are depressions in the rock that fill with snowmelt and rain to form pools.
Fall colors at the Big Tesuque Trailhead on Hyde Park Road in October 2023. Santa Fe National Forest Scenic Byway is one of 25 designated scenic byways in the state.
Luis Sánchez Saturno/New Mexican file photo
1. The drive to the trail
Before your hiking shoes even hit the dirt, the trip to the trailhead will get you in the mood to spend a day outdoors.
I’ve lived in six states. I can say without question that the roads and the drivers in New Mexico have been the worst, but the views out the window are by far the best.
There are 25 designated scenic byways in New Mexico covering more than 2,900 miles, including nine National Scenic Byways, eight state byways and eight federal agency back country byways on Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service land.
The High Road to Taos, the Enchanted Circle, the Jemez Mountain Trail and the Turquoise Trail are just a few scenic byways in Northern New Mexico that will take your breath away. There are many undesignated routes that are just as incredible.
San Ysidro Trials, a little over an hour’s drive southwest of Santa Fe, offers opportunity for exploration through slot canyons and around tinajas, which are depressions in the rock that fill with snowmelt and rain to form pools.
Matt Dahlseid/New Mexican file photo
2. The diversity of landscapes
Frequently depicted as an arid desert state, New Mexico’s geographic diversity comes as a surprise to many who visit.
The fifth-largest state in the U.S. has a wide-range of landscapes that make hiking here never feel stale. There are badlands, grasslands, mesas, mountains, canyons, forests, rolling hills, volcanic fields and more. The place is a geologist’s dream. And the best thing is, the varied elevations allow for year-round hiking.
Nearly one-third of the state is covered in forest, and there are pockets where you can feel more like you’re in the Pacific Northwest than the desert Southwest.
But, yeah, there’s a lot of desert, too, and it can be a lot of fun to hike. The San Ysidro area northwest of Albuquerque is among the desert regions I enjoy exploring. Just make sure to stick to the cooler months and bring plenty of water and sun protection in every season.
A reconstructed portion of an ancient complex on the mesa top at Puye Cliff Dwellings.
Matt Dahlseid/The New Mexican
3. Connecting with history
Footprints preserved in an ancient lake bed at White Sands National Park offer evidence that humans existed in North America 21,000 to 23,000 years ago, about 7,000 years before previously thought. The footprints, discovered in 2009 and carbon dated in 2021, are not currently accessible at the park, but there are many other locations in New Mexico where visitors can gain a better understanding of the long human history on the land.
The Ancestral Pueblo and Mogollon people lived in present-day New Mexico well over 1,000 years ago. Their settlements of grand pueblos and cliff dwellings supported hundreds to thousands of people. Their descendants still live in New Mexico and across Four Corners region.
Places like Chaco Culture National Historical Park, Bandelier National Monument, Gila Cliff Dwellings and Puye Cliff Dwellings allow visitors to learn about the fascinating human history of these areas. With all such locations, practice Leave No Trace principles and do not disturb any historic structures or cultural artifacts.
Buildings constructed for the production of Oppenheimer can be seen in the valley beneath Cerro Pedernal near Abiquiú.
Matt Dahlseid/The New Mexican
4. Feeling like you’re in a movie
Walking through the sandy bottom of a striking canyon or emerging from the pine trees into a large alpine valley can seem like a cinematic experience to hikers in New Mexico. If you feel like you’re passing through the setting of a Western film, it’s quite possible that you are.
Oppenheimer is the most recent of the blockbuster productions filmed in the state, but the movie industry has used New Mexico’s varied landscapes as a backdrop for many other iconic pictures and television series over the decades.
Diablo Canyon near Santa Fe, Valles Caldera in the Jemez Mountains, and Ghost Ranch and Plaza Blanca in the Abiquiú area are some of the more popular filming locations in Northern New Mexico, and all of these sites offer memorable hiking opportunities.
Alamo Canyon as seen from Upper Alamo Trail in Bandelier National Monument. While Bandelier’s Pueblo Loop Trail is frequently bustling with people, its backcountry trails see little traffic.
Matt Dahlseid/New Mexican file photo
5. Discovering solitude
As much as the state is working to grow the outdoor tourism industry, New Mexico still lags well behind its Four Corners neighbors in that regard.
Sure, there are some places where you may encounter heavy traffic on the trails — Bandelier National Monument, Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument and the route up Wheeler Peak in the summer, to name a few. But for those who prefer to appreciate the wonders of nature in peace, it doesn’t take much effort to get away from crowds.
There are 39 wilderness areas across the state that cover nearly 2 million acres and all varieties of terrain.
While the most popular trails found on apps and websites are frequently fantastic, many of the least reviewed ones are, too. That’s where you’re most likely to experience the beauty of a forest or desert without another soul in sight.
Trail runners head down Penitente Peak with Santa Fe Baldy in the distance. Mountain peaks can be a good place to make new acquaintances with fellow nature lovers.
Matt Dahlseid/New Mexican file photo
6. Meeting other people
You’re in New Mexico. You’re in the wilderness. You’re on top of a mountain. There’s one other person on the mountain. You begin conversing. You obviously have at least a couple things in common. You bond over those couple things. New friend? Maybe. At least for a few minutes.
As great as it can be to have space to yourself, it can also be kind of nice to meet other people. I don’t know if it’s the lack of oxygen or what, but I get more talkative on mountains and always seem to strike up a conversation.
Several times I’ve finished a hike with a stranger who I met halfway. Frequently, I’ll run into someone I met months or years ago on a trail and we’ll greet each other like old friends. A few times I’ve exchanged contact info and made a new hiking buddy.
There are some pretty cool people out there on the trail. Sometimes it’s the chance encounters with total strangers that can be the most memorable part of a hike.
The Bisti/De-Na-Zin (pictured) and Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah wilderness areas in northwest New Mexico offer some of the most psychedelic landscapes in the country.
Immersive art and entertainment giant Meow Wolf has had visitors flocking to its House of Eternal Return in Santa Fe for nearly a decade to take a psychedelic adventure. Nature has provided its own venues for that for much longer.
Multiple mind-bending realms span the state. There’s the ethereal gypsum dunes of White Sands National Park in the south; the snaking slot canyon that opens to reveal towering cone-shaped formations at the aforementioned Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument between Albuquerque and Santa Fe; and then there’s the hallucinogenic hoodoos of the badlands of northwest New Mexico.
The Bisti/De-Na-Zin and Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah wilderness areas are among the most unique landscapes in the world, where manta ray shaped formations balance on eroding pedestals and large oval rocks with bizarre markings incubate in the “Alien Egg Hatchery.”
But it’s not otherworldly. It’s just New Mexico.
Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep graze at 12,000 feet atop Penitente Peak in the Pecos Wilderness. The animals’ signature spiral horns can weight up to 30 pounds.
Matt Dahlseid/The New Mexican
8. Creature encounters
New Mexico’s wildlife can leave just as big of an impression on a hiker as its landscapes.
Wave upon wave of sandhill cranes, snow geese and other migratory birds winter along the Rio Grande. Watching an avian mass ascension and hearing their cacophony of calls is both overwhelming and moving — a primal experience.
In the fall, the bugling of hundreds of bull elk echoes across the mountain valleys of the Valle Vidal and the Valles Caldera. Haunting and eerie, the sounds are as much a part of these spaces as their physical features.
Make your way to the top of a mountain and you may meet a cluster of bighorn sheep who barely acknowledge your presence as they graze on the slope.
Whether it’s a bear, pika, lizard, snake, tarantula, mule deer or coyote, sharing space with another creature helps remind us that we have a responsibility to preserve the land for all its inhabitants.
Hikers pass through the narrows of the East Fork Box on the way to a waterfall on Tuesday, July 4, 2023. An 11-mile stretch of the East Fork of the Jemez River received a National Wild and Scenic River designation in 1990.
Matt Dahlseid/New Mexican file photo
9. Finding water
Water is a precious resource in the Western U.S., particularly in New Mexico.
Just 0.2% of the landlocked state’s total area is covered by water, the smallest percentage of any state in the nation.
Used to seeing bone-dry arroyos during their day-to-day lives, New Mexicans are drawn to water for their outdoor fun.
Dramatic vistas of the Rio Grande can be seen from hikes along the rim of the gorge 800 feet above the river near Taos and Questa. And in the Jemez Mountains, the East Fork of the Jemez River attracts residents from Albuquerque and Santa Fe to hike along the tranquil stream.
The jewels of New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains are the scattered alpine lakes set in the Pecos Wilderness. Most can only be reached by foot or hoof and take hours of difficult high-altitude hiking to reach, but the reward is well worth the strain.
Virga appears over the badlands north of Santa Fe in summer of 2023.
Matt Dahlseid/New Mexican file photo
10. The sky
Ask residents what their favorite part of living in New Mexico is and some will say “the sky.”
The sky? Really?
Yes, really.
The sky seems different here than elsewhere. Take a hike on a sunny day (which is the vast majority of days in New Mexico) and the blue looks bluer, especially when contrasted against colorful rocks or cliffs. The dry air, high elevation and lower levels of pollutants help make the sky’s colors appear more vibrant.
This can also be noticed during the state’s famous sunsets, which are appointment viewing like a prime-time television show.
Hiking in the badlands or foothills during golden hour is magical. The pink alpenglow on the mountains, the feathery curtains of rain in the spring that hang on the horizon and reflect the light, it’s all utterly spellbinding.
Look to the sky, smile and give thanks, for you got to spend another day hiking in New Mexico.
What are your favorite things about hiking in New Mexico? Feel free to share in the comments.
