Rio Grande Gorge State Park

This panel advertises a state park that no longer appears on New Mexico's list. The river corridor it describes is run today by the Bureau of Land Management, with campgrounds at Orilla Verde in the south and Wild Rivers in the north, inside the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument proclaimed in 2013. The river itself was among the first eight Congress named wild and scenic, in 1968. The panel's prose has a slip of its own: the stretch from the Colorado border stands as a sentence with no verb. It stands beside US-64 near the gorge bridge.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Rio Grande Gorge State Park With spectacular views and some of the finest public fishing in New Mexico, this park runs along the banks of the Rio Grande. From the Colorado border through the park. The "great river" offers exciting whitewater boating through a deep canyon. There are four major camping/picnicking areas along the river.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Rio Grande Gorge Bridge — steps away
  A steel truss strung across a slot in the basalt west of Taos, 565 feet above the river by the careful measure and 650 by the signs, built when the road beyond it did not yet exist.
• San Francisco de Asís Church, Ranchos de Taos — 11 mi
  The adobe church at Ranchos de Taos that artists always paint from behind, kept standing by the mud its parish spreads over it every June.
• Taos Pueblo — 11 mi
  Two terraced adobe houses facing each other across Red Willow Creek, lived in for something like a thousand years, with no electricity or running water inside the old walls.

More markers nearby

• Jack M. Campbell — 0.4 mi
• Lawrence Ranch — 8.1 mi
• Taos — 9.3 mi
• Taos — 10 mi