Sierra Grande

The heading is a direction: a reader facing the board has the mountain over the left shoulder. Sierra Grande is not a cone like Capulin but a shield, built of andesite lava flows into a broad dome about seven miles across that rises some 2,000 feet above the plain. Its slopes were ranch country early: Stephen Dorsey incorporated a Sierra Grande Ranch Company in 1888. The mountain stands on private land and is seen from the highway rather than visited.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Over Left Shoulder Sierra Grande Largest extinct volcano in northeastern New Mexico. Sierra Grande rises to an elevation of 8,720 feet, one of many volcanoes, cinder cones, and flows that cover more than 1,000 square miles of area in northeastern New Mexico and southeastern Colorado eastward to the Oklahoma state line.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Capulin Volcano National Monument — 12 mi
  A cinder cone you can drive to the top of, rising more than a thousand feet from the high plains east of Raton, whose lava broke out of its foot rather than its crater.

More markers nearby

• Sierra Grande — 6.5 mi
• Capulin Volcano National Monument — 11 mi
• Capulin Volcano National Monument — 12 mi