Truchas clings to a ridge at around eight thousand feet in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and from its edge the land drops away westward toward the Rio Grande valley in a vast spread of mesa and desert. Behind it the Truchas Peaks rise to over thirteen thousand feet. The name is Spanish for trout, from the streams that run off the mountains, and the village has a sense of being at the end of something, which in a way it is.
This is one of the oldest Hispanic settlements in the region, founded in the middle of the eighteenth century as a land grant community on the frontier. Families farmed small plots, grazed sheep, and wove wool, and the village has kept many of its traditions. Weavers and woodcarvers still work here, and a few galleries open to visitors. Robert Redford chose Truchas as a setting for the 1988 film The Milagro Beanfield War, and locals still talk about it, with the mix of pride and weariness that film attention tends to bring.
The High Road to Taos, New Mexico 76, is a rewarding ride, winding between small villages, orchards, and old adobe churches, with the mountains rising on one side and the big western views on the other. The curves are gentle and frequent, the surface is generally decent, and traffic is lighter than on the main highway through the Rio Grande gorge. Climbing up toward Truchas, the road tightens and the views widen. Beware of loose gravel at the edges, and of livestock and dogs on the road, since this is a working village.
There is little here in the way of services, and none you should rely on for fuel. Española, the closest larger town, is about twenty-five kilometres back toward the valley, and Chimayo is nearer but small. Bring water, and be prepared for weather: snow can fall in the high villages in any month except midsummer, and storms build in the afternoons. Autumn is excellent, when the aspens on the mountain slopes turn gold and the air has a crisp bite. The smell of woodsmoke in the evenings is one of the best things about it.