The High Road to Taos: Santa Fe to Taos Pueblo
From the Santa Fe plaza through the land-grant villages of the Sangre de Cristo foothills, Chimayó, Truchas and Las Trampas, to Ranchos de Taos and Taos Pueblo.
The Route at a Glance
The High Road leaves Santa Fe from the Palace of the Governors on the plaza and runs north on US-84/285 to Pojoaque, then turns east on NM-503 past Nambé Pueblo into the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It is about eighty miles to Taos this way, two and a half hours of driving without stops.
The first village of note is Chimayó, with El Santuario de Chimayó in its valley of orchards. From there NM-76 climbs onto the high ground below the Truchas Peaks, the tallest of them 13,101 feet. Truchas, settled around 1754 along a ridge near 8,000 feet, still runs some of its affairs under its Spanish land grant. Las Trampas, founded in 1751 by twelve families from Santa Fe, keeps its old defensive plaza and the church of San José de Gracia, built between 1760 and 1776 and among the least altered Spanish colonial churches in the country; historians count it among the grant villages settled in part by genízaros, Native people raised as captives in Spanish households.
Beyond Las Trampas, NM-75 runs to Peñasco, with Picurís Pueblo, the smallest of the Rio Grande pueblos, half a mile north of the junction, its mission church restored to its eighteenth-century form. NM-518 then crosses the Carson National Forest and drops through Talpa to Ranchos de Taos, where it meets NM-68 beside San Francisco de Asís. Taos lies four miles north, and Taos Pueblo about three miles beyond the plaza.
The road is paved throughout but narrow and winding, and snow can lie on the higher stretches in winter. The villages are small and lived in; their churches open on their own schedules, often only on weekends.
The Drive, Stop by Stop
4 stops along the route, in driving order from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Taos, New Mexico.
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- 4
That's the drive. Take your time, pull over often, and let The High Road to Taos: Santa Fe to Taos Pueblo do what it does best.
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