New Mexico’s 56-mile mountain road winds through villages older than America

It’s a drive you won’t rush

The High Road to Taos covers about 56 miles between Pojoaque and Ranchos de Taos, climbing through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains on a chain of state roads.

You could drive it in two hours flat. Nobody does. Most people take four to seven hours because every few miles, another village pulls you off the road.

Adobe churches, family weaving shops, woodcarvers working in their studios. These communities have held on to their traditions for centuries, and the route strings them together like beads on a line.

Centuries of isolation kept these villages intact

Spanish colonists founded small settlements along mountain rivers here in the 1600s and 1700s.

The valleys sat so far from anything else that the old ways survived, from the architecture to the language to the folk arts families still practice today.

Pueblo communities like Nambe and Picuris have called this same stretch of mountains home for hundreds of years.

The name Sangre de Cristo means “Blood of Christ” in Spanish, derived from the red glow that sometimes lights up the peaks at sunrise and sunset.

A small adobe church draws 300,000 pilgrims a year

El Santuario de Chimayo sits in the village of Chimayo, a small adobe church finished by 1816 and now a National Historic Landmark.

About 300,000 people visit each year, making it the most important Catholic pilgrimage site in the country.

Inside, a room called el pocito holds a pit of earth that many believe can heal. The prayer room next door tells the story on its walls.

During Holy Week, thousands walk here on foot, some from Albuquerque, 90 miles south.

Watch eight generations of weavers work their looms

Chimayo ranks as one of the most important centers of Hispanic weaving. The Ortega family has kept the Spanish Colonial tradition going for eight or nine generations.

The Trujillo family carries it forward, too, with Irvin Trujillo representing the seventh generation of weavers in his line. He received the National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2007.

You can walk into family-run shops that have operated for decades, watch weavers craft diamond motifs and bold colors that define the Chimayo style up close.

Unpainted saints carved from aspen in tiny Cordova

Turn off the main road into a valley, and you reach Cordova, a village known for religious woodcarving.

Carvers here make santos, wooden figures of saints, angels, and biblical scenes. What sets the Cordova style apart is what’s missing: no paint.

The figures are made from aspen, cedar, and natural wood grain. George Lopez, a sixth-generation santero from the village, received the National Heritage Fellowship in 1982.

His family and other local carvers still keep the tradition alive today.

Adobe walls six feet thick guard a 1760s church

Las Trampas in 1751 started when 12 Spanish families from Santa Fe built a village and a defensive wall surrounding a central plaza.

The San Jose de Gracia Church went up between 1760 and 1776, and it stands as one of the best-preserved Spanish Colonial churches in New Mexico.

Its adobe walls run four to six feet thick and rise about 34 feet. Inside, painted designs from the 1700s and 1800s cover the ceiling, and early santero folk art fills the space.

Both the church and the village earned the National Historic Landmark status in 1970.

Truchas sits a mile high with 13,000-foot peaks behind it

At about 8,000 feet on a high ridge, Truchas gives you wide-open views of the Truchas Peaks and the Espanola Valley below.

The village dates to a 1754 Spanish land grant, and some of the original bylaws still hold, including sharing the roads with livestock.

Its church, Nuestra Señora del Rosario, was built in the early 1800s and holds fine examples of early santero art.

The Truchas Peaks, New Mexico’s second-highest mountains at about 13,102 feet, tower nearly 5,000 feet above the village. Artists and craftspeople have settled here over the years, drawn by the light and the long views.

Golden, glittery pottery made from micaceous clay

Picuris Pueblo is a Tiwa-speaking Native American community near Penasco along the High Road. The tribe moved to their current mountain location around 1250 CE.

They made pottery from micaceous clay, giving each piece a golden, glittery sheen from the mica in the earth. These pots work as both art and cookware, sturdy enough to go straight on a stovetop.

You can visit the rebuilt San Lorenzo de Picuris church and a small museum, but ask permission before you take any photographs in the pueblo.

Ponderosa pines and a glimpse of Wheeler Peak

Between Penasco and Ranchos de Taos, the High Road follows NM-518 for about 16 miles through Carson National Forest.

The forest covers 1.5 million acres of northern New Mexico, and this stretch takes you through tall ponderosa pines with mountain views opening up along the way.

On clear days, you can catch sight of Wheeler Peak, the highest point in the state at 13,161 feet. Trails and fishing spots branch off from the road along the Rio Pueblo.

The landscape shifts from high desert to alpine terrain within a few miles.

The church Georgia O’Keeffe painted over and over

San Francisco de Asis Church in Ranchos de Taos went up between 1772 and 1816.

Its massive sculpted adobe buttresses have made it one of the most photographed and painted churches in the country.

Georgia O’Keeffe returned to it again and again, calling it one of the most beautiful buildings the early Spaniards left in the United States.

Ansel Adams photographed it in 1930.

The church still holds services. Every June, community members gather for the enjarre, re-plastering the walls with fresh mud, sand, straw, and water.

The old garrison plaza where the High Road ends

Ranchos de Taos wraps up the drive. Founded in 1725, it was the first Spanish settlement in the Taos Valley after the reconquest.

The village sits four miles south of Taos as a farming and ranching community. The old plaza around the church was once a U-shaped Spanish military garrison.

You can poke around small galleries and shops in the plaza area before heading north on Highway 68 into Taos itself, just a few minutes up the road.

Drive it one way and take the river canyon back

You can run the High Road in either direction, Santa Fe to Taos or the reverse.

A popular move is to drive the High Road one way and return on the Low Road, which follows the Rio Grande through a river canyon.

Fall turns the mountain villages gold with aspens and cottonwoods, while spring brings the biggest crowds during Holy Week pilgrimages to Chimayo.

Cell service drops out along parts of the route, so pull up your directions before you start. And keep in mind these are real communities, so respect private property.

Drive the high road to Taos in New Mexico

If you want to see these villages for yourself, the High Road to Taos Scenic Byway starts where US-285/84 meets State Road 503 in Pojoaque, about 16 miles north of Santa Fe.

The route follows State Roads 503, 76, 75, and 518, ending where NM-518 meets Highway 68 in Ranchos de Taos.

Give yourself at least four hours with stops, though a full day is better.

The San Jose de Gracia Church in Las Trampas often opens on weekends. El Santuario de Chimayo stays open daily.

San Francisco de Asis in Ranchos de Taos welcomes visitors Monday through Saturday. At Picuris Pueblo, check with the pueblo office before your visit.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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