Enchanted Circle

Tuesday, November 3, 2026

If you are driving around Questa today, the weather is on your side. It was clear and cold early this morning, around 34 degrees, with sunny skies ahead and a high near 52 degrees. There are no weather alerts in effect for Questa or Taos County, sunrise was at 6:28 AM and sunset comes at 5:03 PM, so plan mountain driving with that early darkness in mind, especially on shaded curves where a cold morning can leave the pavement slick long after the sun is up.

Did you know Questa's church began in the same year as the village itself? When 35 families received possession of the San Antonio del Rio Colorado land grant in January 1842, the village they founded took its name from Saint Anthony — San Antonio del Rio Colorado, Saint Anthony on the Red River. Construction of the San Antonio church began that same year, in 1842, and the first baptism records from Rio Colorado date to 1842 as well. This was no quick building project. The church would take years to finish, and that long, patient work is part of its story.

Early November is when a patient look upward starts to pay off north of Questa. The Rio Grande Gorge, protected within the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument, is home to two very different eagles. Golden eagles live here all year, riding the thermals that rise off the basalt walls. Bald eagles are the winter guests: the monument's founding proclamation notes that bald eagles roost above the river in winter, then fly out over the sagebrush of the Taos Plateau. As northern waters freeze, more of them follow the river south into our stretch of the gorge.

Monday, November 2, 2026

Did you know that for a time, Questa's molybdenum mine did not sleep at all? After the old high-grade underground veins ran out and underground mining ceased in the late 1950s, years of drilling told a new story. By 1964, exploration begun in 1953 had outlined a large tonnage of low-grade ore just west of the underground workings, ore that could be mined from the surface. It was a completely different kind of mine from the one Questa's first miners had known, and it would reshape work, and the mountain, for a generation.

Sunday, November 1, 2026

Rain is falling over the valley this Sunday, with a high near 55 degrees, rain likely through the day, and sunset coming early at 5:05 PM now that the clocks have gone back. It is a good day to slow down, stay close to home, and look again at the place that has stood at the center of Questa longer than the village has carried its present name: the thick-walled adobe church on the old plaza, St. Anthony's.

East of Questa, one of the village's favorite backroads leaves the highway and climbs into the Carson National Forest. Cabresto Canyon follows Cabresto Creek up through pine and aspen, and the drive ends, for motorized travel, at a small mountain lake tucked under high peaks. It is an easy road to describe and a rewarding one to drive slowly, with the creek, the canyon walls, and the changing light doing most of the work.

Every drive north from Questa follows a road with layers of history under its pavement. Today that highway, NM 522, also carries a name that honors one of Questa's own: in 2022, it was named the Senator Carlos R. Cisneros Memorial Highway.

Carlos R. Cisneros was a Questa man who served 34 years in the New Mexico Senate, from 1985 to 2019. Thirty-four years is an extraordinary span of public service, covering decades of change in New Mexico. Naming the highway north from his hometown for him ties his long career in Santa Fe back to the road home to Questa.

Before it was Questa, this village in northern New Mexico was Rio Colorado. Its story begins in the early 1800s, when the country along the river was a remote and exposed place to try to build a permanent home.

Around 1815, a Spanish military post stood here, and a land grant brought 50 families to the settlement. A land grant was a serious undertaking: families were expected to settle the land, farm it, and hold it. From the very beginning, Rio Colorado was a community built by families putting down roots in demanding country.

Every great mountain drive has a beginning, and for travelers heading east from Questa, it begins on NM 38. The highway was named by 1912 for the Questa-to-Eagle Nest route, a road tying the village to the Moreno Valley. More than a century later, it remains the way east: out of Questa, into the canyon, and up toward the high country.