Pilar, New Mexico: Rio Grande Gorge

There are two ways to go from Santa Fe to Taos - the Low Road and the High Road. Most people seem to prefer the High Road. Yet the Low Road deserves more attention, in part because of a short cut that few probably know about.

Yes, there's a story there.

We were driving along Route 68 when we hit some construction, which slowed up our travel. As we crawled along, we came to the Rio Grande Gorge Visitor Center, run by the National Park Service. Those are always worth a stop.

While there, we told the ranger we were headed to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, located almost due north. She said we should take a short cut - as long as we didn't mind driving on a dirt road for a couple of miles along the way. We were game.

A quick left soon after leaving the visitor center put us on Route 570, when we realized we were now driving right along the gorge - as opposed to relatively close to it on the main road. Wow. It was fabulous, and unexpected. There were a couple of campgrounds on the road, and other places to stop and take in the scenery. We even stopped and put our hands in the Rio Grande; it was rather cold. The dirt road left the car a little dusty, but it was well worth it.

As usual, it's tough to capture it all with a single photograph. The one displayed here will have to do. But there's always a video:



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