New Mexico’s Rio Grande Gorge Bridge by Kaye Spencer #NewMexicoHistory #OldWestHistory #SweetheartsoftheWest

Taos, New Mexico Plaza

By I, Zeality, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2379639

The Taos, New Mexico area is one of my favorite places to visit. From where I live in the southeastern corner of Colorado, it's a long day trip The history of the area draws me. With each visit, I make sure to find a new and different place to see.

'X' marks the Taos-spot.

At any given time of the year in Taos, you'll find "artsy" activities going on around town, which are always entertaining experiences. During the summer and early autumn, especially in the early morning, the skyline will be dotted with hot air balloons.












Taos of the 1880s is one of the settings in my western historical romance novel, The Gunfighter's Woman. A block from the Taos Plaza is an old church, Our Lady of Guadalupe, which plays a significant role in the story. I will write about this church at a later time.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taos,_New_Mexico_USA_-_panoramio_(98).jpg
MARELBU [CC BY 3.0  (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Now, on to the real topic of this article: The Rio Grande Gorge.

The last time I visited Taos, my destination was the Rio Grande Gorge, which is roughly 12 miles northwest of town. Having never been there nor having researched anything about the gorge, it was quite a surprise to be driving over nondescript, flat prairie with the San Juan Mountain range off to the northwest and the Sangre de Cristo Mountain range on the east and the next thing I knew, there was a bridge out in the middle of what is a deceptively flat prairie that runs right up to the foot of the surrounding mountains.

Rio Grande Gorge flat prairie view

Kaye Spencer's photo

Rio Grande Gorge Bridge - south side looking northerly

Kaye Spencer's photo

The website Taos.org (Rio Grand Bridge Gorge) explains about the bridge:
.
…the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge is the second highest bridge on the U.S. Highway System. The bridge is a three-span steel continuous-deck-truss structure with a concrete-filled steel-grid deck. It was called the "bridge to nowhere" while it was being built because the funding did not exist to continue the road on the other side.

Rio Grande Gorge - west side looking westerly

Kaye Spencer's photo

At 650 feet (200 m) above the Rio Grande, it is the fifth highest bridge in the United States. The span is 1,280 feet; two 300-foot-long approach spans with a 600-foot-long main center span. The bridge was dedicated on September 10, 1965 and is a part of U.S. Route 64, a major east-west road.

In 1966 the American Institute of Steel Construction awarded the bridge "Most Beautiful Steel Bridge" in the "Long Span" category. The bridge has appeared in several films, including Natural Born Killers, Twins, She's Having a Baby, Wild Hogs, and Terminator Salvation.

Kaye Spencer at the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge (Autumn 2015)

There is raised concrete walking path along both sides of the bridge. A four-foot-high steel railing keeps the observer from toppling over the edge, but if you have vertigo, a dislike of looking down from a high vantage point, or you don't particularly care for feeling the bridge move under your feet from the traffic (especially trucks) crossing the bridge, you won't be a happy camper here.

There are "look-out points" on both sides that allow you to step farther out over the edge of nothingness. From these places, you get a good view of the gorge floor. Even without binoculars or a zoom lens on your camera, you can see the white water rapids. Apparently over the years, these lookout stations have been the jump off point for suicides.

Rio Grande Gorge rapids

Kaye Spencer's photo

On the west end of the bridge you'll find a dirt parking area and a plethora of roadside vendors, who have touristy wares to sell. A state park rest area, with additional parking, is a short walk up a slight slope. In March 2013, President Obama designated 242,455 acres, which includes the Rio Grande Gorge, as the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument.

Rio Grande Gorge from the bridge looking southerly

Kaye Spencer's image

The website Discover New Mexico explains the geology of the gorge.

• The Rio Grande Gorge is a "rift valley", which is a separation in the earth's crust due to fault activity some 29 million years ago.
• The valley appeared before the river, which is not typical as rivers tend to create valleys, canyons, gorges, and similar geologic features.
• The gorge has many ancient petroglyphs along its walls.
• There are hidden hot springs and ancient ruins along the river.
• The river and immediate surrounding area offers camping, fishing (brown and rainbow trout and northern pike), boating, and rafting opportunities (Class II to Class V white water rapids).
• The gorge is approximately 50 miles long running northwest to southeast of Taos.

Rio Grande Gorge from the bridge looking northerly

Kaye Spencer's photo

Having had more than my fill of the bridge trembling under my feet, I wandered away from the highway and walked along the canyon rim as far as the safety fence allowed.

As the highway noises faded, and I took in the sight of the vast, wide-open scenery, I imagined standing here a hundred and fifty years ago. I thought of cowboys searching for cattle and wild horses or outlaws hiding from the law. From the petroglyphs and ancient ruins that tell their tales 650 feet below, it wasn't difficult to imagine Native Americans engaged in spiritual prayer and ritual in this hidden sanctuary. I thought of the animals that sought shelter, food and water, and protection from predators down in the bottom of the gorge.

My husband tells stories of a favorite fishing spot in the southern end of the gorge. He also says there are places that have a reverence about them—places where ancient memories still linger. Maybe it was the coming dusk, and maybe it was just my writer's imagination, but there was a mystical feel in the air as I stood there in the quiet descending upon the canyon's rim as I watched the shadows lengthen and obliterate all traces of the gorge.

Perhaps Mother Nature was drawing the blanket of serenity over the secrets that lay between the canyon's walls.

Until next time,

Kaye Spencer
Writing through history one romance upon a time

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Palisades Sill, New Mexico and The Gunfighter’s Woman by Kaye Spencer #sweetheartsofthewest #westernromance

Palisades Sill along the Cimarron River

Canyon in northern New Mexico

Every year, I head out on day long road trip that takes me through northern New Mexico or southern Colorado. Both areas are rich with old west history. A few years ago, I took a drive through northern New Mexico to see the spectacular rock cliffs called the Palisades Sill in the Cimarron River Canyon between Cimarron and Taos. It is a lovely, slow drive. If you take an autumnal drive, you will likely see the beautiful colors of the Aspen leaves as they change colors.

I consider Trinidad, Colorado to be the starting point for this drive even though I live two hours to the east. So from Trinidad, head south over Raton Pass then bear to the southwest past the National Rifle Association’s affiliate site, the Wittington Center, and keep going to Cimarron, New Mexico and then head westerly through the mountains to Taos. The narrow, winding, two-lane paved road of 60 miles from Cimarron to Taos roughly follows the Cimarron River through the Cimarron River Canyon, and the drive will take you around an hour and a half.

Kaye at the edge of the Cimarron River

behind her and the Palisades Sill

Cliffs rising out of sight

From Cimarron, you’ll begin the ascent toward Taos through the Cimarron River Canyon. You’ll soon find yourself in Cimarron Canyon State Park and, in just a few miles, you'll come to a breathtaking view of a rough and ragged line of rock cliffs called the Palisades Sill.

Palisades Sill - view from the parking area

These cliffs were cut by the Cimarron River some 40 million years ago during the era of uplifting in the southern Rocky Mountains. The rock is igneous known as sill. Here is a quote from the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources website -http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/tour/state/cimarron/home.html

Cimarron is Spanish for wild and untamed and originally was used in New Mexico to refer to the wild bighorn sheep, and later to the wild horses and cattle that once roamed throughout the north-central mountains. Today, the sparsely populated Cimarron country in western Colfax County can still be described as wild and untamed with its rugged, timbered mountains (the Cimarron Range), towering cliffs, and the previously unpredictable Cimarron River. The Cimarron River has been tamed somewhat by the Eagle Nest Dam, which controls flooding in the canyon.

Many an outlaw and gold-seeker made their way over the this rough and dangerous mountain trail from Cimarron to Taos. In my book, The Gunfighter’s Woman, I sent former gunfighter Matt Caddock over this route when he left the Stirling Ranch near Trinchera, Colorado as his quickest way to reach Taos, New Mexico. He returned to an old church in Taos where he hoped to find clues that would lead him to gold buried near the Spanish Peaks of southern Colorado.

Here is an excerpt from The Gunfighter’s Woman.

Matt Caddock was a man with a simple plan—find the gold and return to Brenna by the first snow at the ranch. He didn’t have much time. No more than a month, if that. Too bad simple plans weren’t necessarily the easiest.

Riding under a promise of a cool evening, his arrival in Taos turned no heads. He was just a stranger going somewhere, but headed nowhere. Skirting the edge of the quiet adobe town, he circled wide around the ruins of the old San Geronimo Church and graveyards until he reached the back of the Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe parish.

Looping the horse’s reins around a short post, he gave him a pat and a promise he’d return soon, then he walked along the adobe wall to the courtyard gate, his gaze scanning the street, buildings, and passersby.At the church door, he paused, glanced around, then stepped into the cool tranquility inside the church and removed his hat. He lingered at the side of the doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the change in light while getting his bearings. The floor fell away in a gentle slope to the front where candles burned and a shadowed cross hung high on the far wall.

Movement, and a barely audible scraping—like a footstep— caught his ear, and he expected a priest or a parishioner to greet him…but no one appeared. Chalking it up to a mouse scurrying about, Matt walked up the narrow aisle to the first pew where he’d sat beside Henry on that long ago day in his seventeen-year-old life. He took the same place on the wooden pew where he’d sat with Henry, and gazed at the serene white figure of the Lady of Guadalupe nestled into her protective alcove carved into the two-foot-thick adobe wall not five feet in front of him.

He had dim recollections of going to church a couple of times a year with his parents, but never again after his ma died. The only other time he’d been in a church was with Henry here.

He was uncomfortable in a church, because he didn’t know what to do. When he’d voiced his misgivings, Henry had explained a church was a place to think. You didn’t have to pray if you didn’t want to. So that’s what he’d done. He’d thought.

He’d wondered about his future as much as he questioned why his parents had died and left him a penniless orphan. There seemed no point to anything in his life with the aimless drifting from job-to-job and town-to-town with Henry. Together, all they owned was a pocket full of nothing. Granted, they had clothes on their backs and food in their bellies, but wasn’t there more out there…somewhere?

Guilt stinging his conscience for those ungrateful thoughts, he’d peeked at Henry. His eyes were closed and his chin rested on his chest.

The Gunfighter's Woman is available on Amazon.com: HERE

Until next time,

Kaye Spencer

Writing through history one romance upon a time

Note: Images are Kaye's personal pictures

My apologies for the weirdness of the different fonts and font sizes in the article. Blogger was not playing nicely when I wrote this. ;-)

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