Carson National Forest

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 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.