Geology

The drive east from Angel Fire offers one of the finest geology lessons in northern New Mexico. Past Eagle Nest, U.S. Highway 64 follows the Cimarron River into Cimarron Canyon, where Cimarron Canyon State Park stretches from Eagle Nest Lake to Ute Park within the 33,116-acre Colin Neblett Wildlife Area. According to the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, the canyon exposes nearly two billion years of geologic history, written in cliffs and road cuts that an observer can learn to read.

From Angel Fire, look northeast across the wide Moreno Valley and one summit commands the view. Baldy Mountain rises to 12,441 feet, the highest peak in the Cimarron Range, climbing about 3,640 feet above the valley floor in just a few miles. Its bare, treeless crown is beautiful, but for rockhounds it is also a lesson: the gold rush that built Elizabethtown began in the geology of this one mountain.

The Moreno Valley gold rush began in creek gravel, but its fortune was buried in the mountain. The story of the Aztec Mine is how a placer camp on Willow Creek became one of New Mexico's great hard-rock mines.