Rio Grande del Norte National Monument

National Monument Managed By The Bureau Of Land Management, Designated 2013; 242,500 Acres Of The Rio Grande Gorge, Volcanic Cones And Sage Mesa, Including The Wild Rivers Area At The Confluence Of The Rio Grande And The Red River · Questa, New Mexico

The Rio Grande has cut an 800-foot slot through a basalt plateau north of Taos, and the 242,500 acres around it became a national monument in 2013. The landscape reads as flat sage mesa with extinct volcanic cones on it until you walk to the edge and the ground simply stops. At Wild Rivers, the Red River joins the Rio Grande at the bottom of the gorge and the trails down are short, steep and unrelenting, dropping around 800 feet in under a mile. The Rio Grande through here was one of the first eight rivers protected under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act in 1968, and the Taos Box section below is among the better-known whitewater runs in the Southwest. Bighorn sheep were reintroduced and are regularly visible on the walls. The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge on US 64, 565 feet above the water, spans the same canyon and is where most visitors get their first look at it, and where almost all of them stop. The gorge from La Junta Point, 45 minutes north, is the better view and is seen by a fraction as many people.

Wild Rivers Back Country Byway, NM Highway 378, Questa, Questa, New Mexico, 87556, United States

Open all year, day and night, with no gate and no entrance station on most of it. The Wild Rivers visitor centre on NM 378 keeps daytime hours in the warmer months and is closed or intermittent in winter. Campgrounds along the rim road are seasonal and water is turned off from about October to April. The rim road and the steep river trails are snow-covered and often impassable in winter. The Gorge Bridge on US 64 is open at all times.

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