Day 25 – The Old Coronado Trail

Often when we travel, we are surprised at the way the landscape quickly changes over a rather short period of time. One such drive on this trip was what is sometimes referred to as the Coronado Trail, highway 180, in southeast New Mexico.

We headed out towards Silver City which we knew was in the mountains, but all we saw was flat desert. There was sage and cacti, but mountains? Maybe that smudge in the distance?


Before long, the smudge changed into arid rolling hills. The vegetation changed too. There were larger bushes and some pinyon trees scattered amongst the sagebrush.






Soon the road wound through those low hills and we glimpsed snow capped peaks off in the distance. Would we be going over those?







The low hills gave way to higher mountains which had tall pine trees and warnings to watch for elk.





As we dropped off the high summit on the trail, we did encounter a small herd of elk grazing near a mountain meadow. The dark green conifer forest was much thicker at that altitude.







Again, the landscape altered when we dropped back down onto the desert floor. We were once again rolling across a desert with scattered sagebrush. However, there were decidedly fewer cacti. Could it be the more northern latitude?

All of these changes in habitat occurred in less than 200 miles of travel! It is a marvel of nature.

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