Eagle Nest sits on the high Moreno Valley floor, where the wind has room to run, and the first thing you notice is the lake. Eagle Nest Lake was formed by a dam on the Cimarron River finished in 1918, a large, shining sheet of water against a backdrop of mountains. Anglers come for trout and kokanee salmon, and in winter ice-fishing shacks dot the surface. The village itself is little more than a strip of motels, cafés, and gift shops along the highway, with a population of a few hundred, and it lives on the traffic of the Enchanted Circle.
The valley is a broad bowl of grass at over eight thousand feet, ringed by the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo range. It was a ranching region for generations, and the old Maxwell Land Grant, once one of the largest private estates in America, covered much of the land around. A little to the west lies the ghost town of Elizabethtown, where a gold rush in the 1860s briefly built New Mexico's first incorporated town. Elk graze the meadows in spring and autumn, and the sky is huge and often filled with raptors.
From a rider's standpoint, this is the easy, scenic part of the loop. The road is wide and straight, with long views, and the main hazard is the wind, which can blow hard across the valley in spring. To the east, US 64 drops into Cimarron Canyon, a spectacular gorge of granite cliffs and tall pines along a trout stream, with a narrow, winding road that rewards a slower pace. The surface can be rough in places, and deer are a danger at dusk.
There is fuel in Eagle Nest, and cafés that serve breakfast and burgers. Taos, thirty-two kilometres away, has more choice. The valley can be cool even in summer, with frost possible in September, so carry a layer and gloves. Late spring and autumn bring the most dramatic skies, with storms rolling across the valley and the light breaking through in shafts.