AS THE JEEP TIRES scrape near the edge of the gravel road, driver Gary Swinford prompts, “See how steep it is?”
You can’t miss it. The gravel slope drops so precipitously that the ridgeline on the far side of the valley feels closer than the bottom. As the owner of Red River Offroad for 13 years, Swinford has made a job of taking people where sheer drops and rough contours might otherwise scare them off driving, but his motivation is more about sharing his affection for this place that fully enthralls him. Although he’s waiting on a permit renewal to start running tours again this year, he volunteers to take me for an early summer drive.
“I love these roads,” he says, as we rumble along the dirt path curving steadily uphill. Exiting town up Mallette Canyon, the road passes a playground and new skate park and pickleball court, then hugs the shoulder of one of the mountains framing the town of Red River. The hotels shrink into tiny boxes of colorful rooftops, and soon the ski lift off-ramps at Red River Ski & Summer Area are at eye-level.
“Here’s where you go, ‘Ooh,’ ” Swinford says, as the view tops out to a lofty cluster of 12,000-foot-tall peaks, then turns around the valley’s edge and opens into Colorado. He loves history, so his verbal detours between scenic stops revisit the area’s fur trapping and mining legacies, noting how humans have shaped the land. He points out what new eyes might miss, like abandoned mine shafts bored into caramel and cream rock faces, and how flattened trees trace a windstorm’s swirls over the peaks.
Craft beers and cocktails flow at Red River Brewing’s outdoor bar.
He warned me to pack a jacket for our outing. (“All we’re doing is going up.”) As promised, when he cuts the engine and we step out to soak in the view, crisp alpine air meets us. “Not bad for home,” says the Indiana transplant, who picked this place on purpose.
Summer weekends bustle in Red River with generous doses of out-of-staters chasing a high-elevation reprieve from the heat. Off-highway vehicles cruise from rental shops to trailheads. Horseback riders clop through downtown before ditching civilization for the high country. Chairlift rides start just a block off Main Street to elevate visitors for a picnic, a view, and even a disc golf course. Hikes start out the backdoor of hotels.
If those fixed enticements aren’t enough, a portfolio of events punctuates the summer with concerts, wine, and food tastings. All of it unfolds amid a deliberately cute downtown that blends Swiss chalet and Old West styles for an enticing energy that inspires lingering or finding reasons to pass back through town.
As Red River celebrates its 130th birthday this year, the Enchanted Circle outpost continues to find ways to renew itself—by choice, out of necessity, and in recovering from tragedy. Recent years have seen hotels renovated and new restaurants pop up. A new music festival with a food truck cook-off joined the event lineup this July, and a revised iteration of a mid-August music and barbecue festival is hitting its stride.
Gary Swinford runs Red River Offroad.
“People love this town,” says Michael Calhoun, who runs Red River Brewing Company & Distillery. “People come to Red River, fall in love with the place, and keep coming back.”
The town specializes in cool summer retreats for Texans and Oklahomans. Some have come for generations, visiting with their grandparents in the 1960s and now bringing their own grandchildren.
It’s the right size for parking a vehicle for the day and turning the kids loose, Michael says. Unpretentious accommodations range from cabins and camping at the RV park to vacation rentals and hotels. An array of activities meets different ages and activity levels, from fly-fishing the namesake river or casting into the town-run pond to hiking to motorcycling and OHV touring. Benches and outdoor tables huddle along Main Street’s sidewalk to enhance the family-retreat vibe.
“They all line up to make Red River the right choice for an awful lot of people,” says Michael, who was born and raised here. His mother, Linda Calhoun, is now in her fifth term as mayor and works for a real estate company founded in the early 1960s. His father still runs Der Markt Food Store, which he opened in the 1970s.
Sip Sheehan Winery wines.
After retiring from a career as a software engineer at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Michael moved back home to be near the hiking trails and some of his favorite places. The idea of opening a brewery on a corner property his parents owned started with a family conversation around a table at another brewery. Twenty-seven months later, they opened the doors to the town’s first brewery in 2018, now a centerpiece of downtown and very much a family operation.
On a busy Friday afternoon, with tables full and music going, Michael takes a few minutes to show me around one of the highest elevation breweries in the country, peering in on the boiling sugar and grain water that’ll ferment into beer. His head brewer and another staffer shovel spent grain out as we tour a room refrigerated to a bracing 34 degrees. Roughly 49,000 pints of beer are stored here, inside the barrels in which they were brewed, and then piped to taps at the bar.
“This beer is the freshest you’ll ever have in your life,” he says, a hand on one of the shining silver drums. Almost immediately, the brewery lineup expanded to include distilled spirits—rum, gin, whiskey, agave, vodka, and sotol—which required a second location to house the even bigger distilling equipment.
Last summer, Red River Brewing added a tasting room for sipping cocktails at the other end of town. Peering in on the liquid crystal innards of one of the stills means breathing in a burning whiff of agave spirits. Because alcohol, like water, boils at a lower temperature at altitude, Michael says, their spirits preserve subtle flavors otherwise lost in the distilling process.
“Between that and our water supply, how can you go wrong?” he asks.
Michael and Sharon Calhoun own Red River Brewing.
THE 8750' BBQ AND MUSIC FESTIVAL IS NOT new, really—it’s the rebranded Hot Chili Days, Cool Mountain Nights celebration that began in the 1990s. In 2021, it relaunched under the umbrella of Red River Events, a nonprofit run by the owner of Texas Reds Steakhouse and the Motherlode Saloon, with a new name and some tasty ambitions. Charlie Wenger was newly transplanted to Red River from Seattle when he was dubbed event organizer in May and told to sell as many tickets as he could by August.
This year, organizers secured official designation as a statewide championship barbecue cook-off, one of only two in New Mexico. That status draws competitive cooks vying to qualify for national championships, bumping registrations (and tasting options) close to 50. The smokers filling Brandenburg Park with the scent of hardwood just add to the ambience, Wenger says. More than 60 teams also compete in red chile and green chile cook-offs.
Hit the Motherlode Saloon for fun.
Wenger has been steering the music lineup to more and bigger bands, with a focus on Texas country and Americana and a balance of recognizable names and up-and-comers. “Most of the event is within walking distance,” Wenger explains, pacing the distance between Brandenburg Park, the grass-covered park filled all day with music, and the Motherlode Saloon, where music from the outdoor stage will be piped inside for dancing on the boot-polished wooden floor. Some venues are running close to capacity, and the weekend itself might be one of the town’s busiest. “We’re pretty proud of that, for sure,” he says.
Still, Red River has undergone some serious introspection over the past few years about the future of the mountain town and its identity as both a destination and community. A two-year process to develop the city’s comprehensive master plan dovetailed with the tragic shooting at the 2023 Memorial Day Motorcycle Rally that left three dead and five injured.
The motorcycle rally, then a 41-year-old gathering, had long been the busiest weekend in town, drawing more than 20,000 people for group rides, a parade, live music, and vendors hawking motorcycle accessories and apparel. Rows of Harleys lined up, down, and even through the center of Main Street.
“It’s pretty mind-boggling,” Mayor Calhoun says of those crowds. “But we always felt safe—we always felt safe—until we didn’t.”
Catch air at Mallette Park’s skate park.
The first community meeting was scheduled soon after. Those conversations settled on replacing the rally with a family-oriented Mayfest in the Mountains, which has drawn more modest crowds for funnel cakes, face painting, carnival games, music, and a memorial wall for veterans in the visitor center.
For 51 weeks out of the year, Red River is a destination for multigenerational family visits, and many argued it was time Memorial Day weekend align with that ethos. But some still find it hard to lose the economic boost of the biker rally, particularly when Memorial Day is often preceded by two very slow tourism months after the ski area closes and before summer really kicks off, when many businesses simply close.
“The bikers come and inject a ton of capital into town after a long off-season,” says Wenger, who also bartends at the Motherlode Saloon, long the headquarters for the rally.
As Memorial Day kicked off this summer, the town seemed split. Near the Motherlode, motorcycles framed the eastern end of Main Street. The saloon sported a sign that declared “Revive the ride.” The purr of engines made for frequent background noise, and riders took off for group rides through the likes of the Río Grande del Norte National Monument. The crowd was a fraction of previous years’ rallies, but present. So were dozens of law enforcement officers.
Closer to Brandenburg Park, families were out, casting Velcro bait after Velcro fish with New Mexico Department of Game & Fish staff, rolling around inside person-size plastic bubbles in inflatable pools, and signing up for cotton candy and corn dogs.
Get on Red River Ski & Summer Area’s zip line.
Maybe it’s a split, and maybe it’s a balance. The future might see a smaller-scale version of the motorcycle ride at one end of town, family-friendly events in the center, and some crossover, the mayor says. “I think that’s really our goal—to be able to entertain both groups of people and everybody feel safe,” Mayor Calhoun says. “We’re looking at how we can reinvent an event that’s been good to Red River for 42 years, and we had one really bad year.”
If there’s a place that’s skilled in pleasing a varied crowd and keeping them coming back, Red River might be it. The town’s master plan, released this May, outlines what it wants to be over the next 20 years: A town rooted in its history and its unique appeal, but also one that develops a diverse, year-round economy less dependent on tourism, with more residential housing, including an affordable housing program. Community members surveyed describe loving the outdoors and feeling like they’re “living in a Hallmark movie,” while hoping for a few more of the basics, like daycare and a medical clinic.
The stories of how Red River draws people in stack up, including the mayor’s: She grew up camping there every summer and moved to town the week after graduating college. Trails around town are so beloved that people bike or hike the same routes several times in a season, like catching up with a friend. One mountain biker so loved his go-to line that when a windstorm buried the trail with a thousand downed trees, he spent his summer sawing through them to reopen the route.
Don’t miss Red River Brewing's tacos.
As downtown quiets on this summer evening, ducks, hummingbirds, and swifts skitter over the park and along the river. Deer nose their way through lawns behind lodges. Firepits light up, and chairs encircle them as the sky turns pink. The town’s namesake river ambles along the edge, just out the back door of some of the lodging.
As we loop through town to finish the Jeep tour, Gary Swinford notes the out-of-state license plates. All summer long, Texas plates will outnumber those from anywhere else. But he adds, “I think something you should do once in your life is live in a resort town for a while.”
As in, make the setting for your daily life a place where someone else comes to vacation. Raise a happy dog with mountains just out your back door. Find a road you love, then drive it every week.
Freelance writer Elizabeth Miller’s summer ambitions include repeating some favorite hikes just outside Red River.
RED ZONE
EAT. Red River Brewing & Distillery plates pub fare—burgers, BBQ, sandwiches, and fried cheese curds—alongside pints and cocktails. Vine, a brunch hot spot, serves the eggs Benedict people can’t seem to stop talking about. Watch for occasional pairing dinners that showcase various cuisines and a street food menu of tacos and sliders. The Bistro, which opened this past winter, aims for upscale offerings, including sushi with fish overnighted from the coast. Yu Garden Asian Cuisine, formerly of Angel Fire and Taos, has made its third stop on the Enchanted Circle by opening a location in Red River in November.
DRINK. Main Street is now bookended with options to taste the New Mexico terroir, with Sheehan Winery Tasting Room on the west side, pouring New Mexico State Fair Wine Competition medal-winning wines, and Noisy Water Winery toward the east of town, offering a spot to sip from this fifth-generation winery. Catch your caffeine buzz at Steam Coffee Co., where signature drinks include frappés and smoothies, or at Bearly Awake Coffee Co., where a latte or bubble tea can be paired with an electric bike rental or an ATV or horseback tour.
STAY. The Best Western Rivers Edge was recently renovated and sits near the base of the chairlift for summer hiking access (and for any skiers counting down to December), with a glassed-in hot tub overlooking the water, riverside tables, and breakfast cooked to order. Park your home-on-wheels at Red River RV Park, 4K River Ranch, or Road Runner RV Resort. Find your private cabin retreat on redriver.org’s lodging listings.
SHOP. Hit Taos Mountain Outfitters for that extra layer or water bottle, because nights are cold, and it’s important to stay hydrated in the altitude.
