WE APPROACH WHITE SANDS NATIONAL PARK from Las Cruces on I-70, climbing up and over the jagged Organ Mountains. The desert is stark out here, beautiful but ominous. After passing military installation…
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FOR ANCESTRAL PUEBLOAN PEOPLE, Chaco Canyon may have been a central place, but the culture spread across the present-day boundaries of four states. Hundreds of additional communities share Chaco’s…
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C HACO CANYON is part of a story that remains alive today, according to Craig Quanchello, governor of Picuris Pueblo. The community has long affirmed its ties to those ancestral people but recently…
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WHEN EDUCATOR Jon Ghahate (Laguna/Zuni) guides tours through Chaco Culture National Historical Park, he likes to have references on hand, but he also hopes people will explore opportunities to deepen…
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THE SUN IS JUST STARTING to bake through crisp morning air as Jon Ghahate strides to the overlook to Fajada Butte, the pillar of rock near Chaco Culture National Historical Park’s entrance. Light…
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WHEN ONE OF THE CREEPIEST early sequences in Vince Gilligan’s recent Apple TV series, Pluribus, unfolds in the parking lot of an Albuquerque strip mall, many local viewers instantly recognized actress…
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SPRINGER STATION, SPRINGER In Springer, the Brown Hotel—where Judy Garland filmed scenes for The Harvey Girls (1946) and cafe regulars included Wilford Brimley—is once again welcoming travelers as…
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TUCKED INTO THE rugged folds of the Organ Mountains near Las Cruces, crumbling stone walls mark the ghostly remnants of the Van Patten Mountain Camp—once an oasis where visitors escaped the desert…
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THE FIRST SUNRISE OF 2025 has yet to warm the buttresses of San Francisco de Asís church in Ranchos de Taos. Several dozen people shiver in its front courtyard. A few wear a hodgepodge of ceremonial…
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ABOUT 20 MILES southeast of Deming, the desert floor opens into a shallow, rock-lined crater, bordered by six concrete lines and a pair of triangular slabs. A nearby marker suggests an otherworldly…
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