AND WONDERFUL NATIONAL MONUMENT

Standing on top of a 3 million-yearold volcanic cone in northern Taos County, there’s not much for the eye to see but sagebrush, piñon pine, rugged rock, gnarly juniper and the distant white peaks of Colorado. It’s dry and the wind whistles high. The landscape is lonely. Someone from wetter and greener climates might say it’s desolate.

Thanks to a stroke of Barack Obama’s presidential pen in 2013, this high desert landscape will remain this way — mostly empty of human signs. Río Grande del Norte National Monument, which spans 242,555 acres — most of them in Taos County — is the nation’s largest national monument. That designation protects from development the arid, high mountain Taos Plateau and the deep gorge that the Río Grande cuts from the Colorado border to where the canyon opens up in Pilar. That means no fracking, no drilling, no mining, no suburbs, no wind farms, no new roads, no power lines. Rain and wind will be the primary factors shaping this region for centuries to come. The monument designation also protects low-impact

human uses of this land — collecting piñon nuts, rafting, wood gathering and fishing the remote waters of the Río Grande Gorge. “It’s one of those places that politics hasn’t been able to touch — it’s a true success story,” says Nick Streit, a lifelong Taos resident and fisherman who owns the Taos Fly Shop, a landmark in town since 1980. Streit’s father opened the fly-fishing shop before retiring to guide fisherman in the gorge, and Streit grew up roaming the (now protected) canyon. Later he helped coordinate and lead the campaign to get the area declared a national monument, which protects it for generations to come. Encompassing land in Taos and Rio Arriba Counties, the monument designation put nearly a fifth of all land in Taos County under federal protection, making it arguably one of the wildest lands in the country.

“There is no greater treasure than America’s outdoors, and in Northern New Mexico, you’re going to get the very best example of that,” says Pamela Mathis, the new field manager for the Taos office of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which oversees the monument. Mathis moved to New Mexico from Tucson this spring, after falling in love with the Río Grande Gorge during a rafting trip two years ago. “The peace and serenity, the birds and wildlife — it’s a joyful thing,” she says.

During the summer of 2020, the monument saw an influx of visitors, even though its campgrounds were closed due to COVID19. “The pandemic has pushed people into the outdoors like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” Streit says. “But the monument is still really isolated. Most of the time, I think it’s crowded if I see one other person. That’s the beauty of the monument. It’s the great equalizer — we can all own it together and you can find a little spot down there and call it your own.”

The campgrounds within the monument have opened back up, as have the visitor centers. Although the gorge and the river are the main attractions of the monument, there are plenty of other recreational opportunities, including mountain biking and rock climbing. Hunting, fishing, hiking and collecting piñon nuts and firewood are also allowed here. Judy Culver, BLM Taos assistant field manager for the monument, says everything will be open this year — although it remains to be seen whether the monument will hold the guided hikes or interpretive nature walks it has hosted in the past.

“There are some really nice rock climbing areas,” Culver says, and online interactive maps to help you plan your climbs. There are also petroglyphs, many of them uncharted, but climbers need to be sure to stay away from archaeological sites. In spring, some areas of the monument are closed because golden and bald eagles nest there. Check with the BLM if you have any questions about what will be open or closed when you want to visit.

The national monument designation did not affect existing roads in the area, most of which are dirt or gravel tracks crisscrossing the wide plateau west of the gorge to US 285. You might want to avoid the tracks if it’s muddy, however.

Flora, fauna and geology

The monument, which includes some critical wildlife habitat, is home to large herds of pronghorn antelope, deer and elk. A herd of protected bighorn sheep that inhabits the canyon has increased dramatically in recent years, and sheep can often be