Angel Fire

We chased this mountain range from Santa Fe, up through Taos and over to Angel Fire. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains are a segment of the southern Rocky mountains, extending from south-central Colorado to north-Central New Mexico. The Sangre de Cristo mountains were named in 1719 by the Spanish explorer Antonio Valverde y Cosio, who noted a red tint on the snowy peaks at sunrise and sunset and named the peaks for the "Blood of Christ."

Heading out of Santa Fe, traveling north.

This is the third time we have passed this hill and rock formation know as Camel Rock. We passed it before on our way to Bandelier National Monument. Across the road is a casino called the Camel Rock Casino.

High desert and mountains.

Heading into the foothills.

A river appeared beside the road...

(enlarge to see a dilapidated bridge)

which turned out to be the Rio Grande River.

A pretty full river.

We didn't stop but the scenery was...

awesome!

Coming closer to the mountains.

That's Taos at the base.

It turns out the the storm that we experienced yesterday in Santa Fe, and which brought a new coating of snow on the mountains, is bringing more cold weather the next few days and over the week-end. Here, in Angel Fire, the temperature every night is supposed to go well below freezing and on Saturday doesn't get above freezing during the day. We have decided not to stay and tomorrow will drive back down to Albuquerque.