Why this ride
Sustained elevation change, linked bends and open summit views. It also links naturally to Taos Pueblo region.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Talimena to Santa Fe High Road
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 129 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 2 h 05
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Access context
Check seasonal gates, park access and state 511 notices before publication. Specific flag: seasonal.
Seasonal context
May-Oct
Scenic road chapters
High Road to Taos
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 56 km this is High Road to Taos, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 56 km
- Named road
- High Road to Taos
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Santa Fe
Route 66 used to go to Santa Fe, and then in 1937 it did not. The original alignment of the Mother Road ran over Glorieta Pass into the old Spanish capital of New Mexico, before dropping south to Albuquerque, and then engineers cut a straight line across the desert from Santa Rosa to Albuquerque, shaving about a hundred miles off the journey and leaving Santa Fe on a bypassed loop. The ride from Amarillo to Santa Fe follows that early route, and this is the end of it, in a city at about seven thousand feet in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
Read the complete Santa Fe write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Santa Fe sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is Chimayo.
2. Chimayo
Chimayo is a village in a fold of the high desert foothills of northern New Mexico, at about 1,800 metres, and it holds one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the United States. The Santuario de Chimayo, a small adobe church completed in 1816, stands in a courtyard shaded by cottonwoods, with twin bell towers and a simple, dignified interior. Inside a side room, a small hole in the floor, the pocito, contains soft earth said to have healing properties, and every year tens of thousands of pilgrims come, many on foot, to take a pinch of the soil, with the greatest numbers on Good Friday.
Read the complete Chimayo write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Chimayo comes up 46 km in. Next is Taos.
3. Taos
Taos is a small town with a big reputation among painters, writers and people who came for a visit and stayed. It lies at about 7,000 feet on a high plateau at the southern end of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico, with the dark ridge of the range rising to the east and the dry sagebrush plain dropping to the Rio Grande gorge to the west. The light is extraordinary, clear and golden, and early in the twentieth century it drew a group of artists, the Taos Society of Artists, who painted the landscape and the people. D. H. Lawrence also lived near here for a time in the 1920s, and his ranch can be visited.
Read the complete Taos write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
129 km in you reach Taos.
Recorded source links
More motorcycle rides nearby
- High Road to Taos · 126 km
- Santa Fe day out · Taos Pueblo · 234 km
- High Road and Rio Grande Gorge Loop · 242 km