“IN THE LANDSCAPE, you can witness time from 215 million years ago,” says Joanne Lefrak, director of experience and social impact at Ghost Ranch. Located an hour north of Santa Fe in Abiquiú, the education and retreat center sits amid high cliffs, mesas, and valleys. The brightly colored rock formations were a favorite subject of modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe, who lived and worked on the property for decades. “People are struck by the colorful red, yellow, purple, and gray striations in the landscape, which create a sense of awe, wonder, and connectedness,” Lefrak says.
Ghost Ranch’s guided tours are some of the best ways to get up close and personal with the unique property. The Georgia O’Keeffe Landscape Tour follows in the artist’s footsteps. “You will be standing in the exact location that O’Keeffe was when she made the painting,” Lefrak says. “It’s a really special experience.”
The region’s ancient geological past—which once included lakes, floodplains, and deserts—can be explored on the Paleontology Tour, as well as at the on-site Ruth Hall Museum of Paleontology, where fossils discovered at three nearby quarries illuminate the beginning of the Age of the Dinosaurs. “It’s rare to have a natural history museum that’s also at the location of an excavation site where those fossils were discovered,” Lefrak says.
People’s sense of connection to this mystical landscape dates back to the earliest settlements in northern New Mexico. Ancestral people from several pueblos and tribes have called this place home. Attached to the natural history museum is the Florence Hawley Ellis Museum of Anthropology, which hosts a permanent exhibition of Ancestral Puebloan objects, as well as works from contemporary Indigenous artists from nearby pueblos.
“We have expanded the exhibits to present the vibrancy of local Indigenous communities,” Lefrak says. “Working with these living artists, who often carry forth their pueblo’s traditions with a contemporary perspective, brings an Indigenous voice into the museum presentations.”
A variety of accommodations, including campsites, historic cottages, and suites, means you can spend a day, a weekend, or a vacation exploring this magical place.