Almost There Ghost Ranch Greeting Cards
“Almost There, Ghost Ranch New Mexico”
Photo by: Karen Butts
Date: August 27, 2024
Location: The Colorado Plateau Abiquiu, NM
Elevation: 6,200’
Just one mile east of the entrance to Ghost Ranch, you may have to stop your car and get out to take it all in. The red rocks tower above, reaching hundreds of feet into the azure, blue sky. If you line yourself up just so, the vista to the northeast reaches out several miles. The layers of rock here reveal millions of years of geological history – 170-million-year-old Entrada Sandstone has broken away and is partially covering the older and deeper 200 mya Chinle formation. A bit of the younger Todilto layer is visible up above the sandstone. The colors are as soothing and inviting as the scene is overwhelming.
If you came from the direction of Santa Fe and Abiquiu, you climbed up on to the southeastern edge of the Colorado Plateau just a few miles east of here. The plateau is vast, it stretches north and west into Arizona, Utah and Colorado encompassing 130,000 square miles.
Stop and take it all in as best you can; walk around, hike if possible, look for flowers, animal tracks, signs of people who have lived here for generations – sketch, paint, jot down some notes, the longer you can pause the more you will see and understand. It’s worth it.
