Framedlight

  In Chama we turned northeast on to Highway 17 and into Colorado. As we ascended towards the Cumbres Pass (10,022 ft) the weather worsened and finally we were driving on compacted snow with very little traffic around. It was quite frightening and we were glad of the 4x4 we had rented. Descending the weather improved although it was still very cold. The road then turns east and follows the Conejos River and we stopped by the side of the road several times to look at it. Finally we were driving through Antonito, a very small town whose prosperity is now helped by the legal selling of marijuana which has been illegal in New Mexico until only recently. We stopped to look at the northern terminus of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad but the goods yard was not as extensive as the Chama one.

  We drove through Chama and were pleasantly surprised to come across a train terminal with station buildings and locomotives. The station at Chama is the western terminus of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railway. This is a stream driven heritage railway which operates during the summer months, taking tourists the 64 miles between Antonito and Chama. The railroad is all that is left from the Denver and Rio Grande Railway extension running from Alamosa Colorado, west to Chama New Mexico and then on to Durango Colorado. The railway is narrow gauge as it was cheaper to build and also the trains can take sharper bends. The track had to be taken through two tunnels, over a 10,015 mountain pass and around a 600 ft gorge! It was used to transport minerals and then oil and lumber. However the Cumbres Pass proved problematic. In the winter the area can get as much as 500 inches of snow. The company bought two rotary snow ploughs which are still in Chama but in the winter of 1951 - 1952 the snow

  We were going to fly back to the UK from Denver airport so we planned a slow route from Santa Fé to Denver, through Colorado and the Rockies. But when we got up to leave the Parador on the Friday morning, we found that snow had fallen quite heavily overnight as was evidenced in the car park. We were pleased that we were now in possession of a Ford 4x4 which we felt would do the trick. The route took us back over our well worn path of Highway 84, running north west past Ghost Ranch and the Pedernal  towards a town called Chama. In fact by the time we got up to Abiquiu the snow was disappearing although we could still see it falling on the Pedernal. I stopped to take a picture of the entrance to Gost Ranch as we realised we had not got one Snow was falling on the Padernal - Georgia O'Keeffe's mountain There was lots of colour in the hills as we drove west Chama is only 7 miles from the Colorado border and, according to Wikipedia has a very harsh subarctic continental climate. N

  In the afternoon we walked into central Santa Fé and went to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. The museum houses a sizeable collection of her work and it was a good climax to visiting her house in Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch. I will just post two pictures from this. A photo of Georgia O'Keeffe and an image from the cloak room! Next we visit the Cathedral Basilica of St Francis of Assisi, built 1714 - 1717 and renovated in 1967. It is a massive Romanesque Revival building built on the site of a previous church destroyed in the Pueblo Rebellion in 1680. I didn't think it was very pretty. We didn't spend any time inside the cathedral as there was a rehearsal in progress. Afterwards we wandered around the city, visited the New Mexico History Museum which was very interesting and later ate in a very popular pasta restaurant near our hotel.