I reckon most folks don't care about these posts, but I have fun sifting through images when I have down time. We all have our "places" and for me, aside from my home area of northern California, the southwest is mine. Beginning with my first trip to Philmont in 1992 and intensifying through numerous trips during my four year exile in Dallas, I came to love the southwest more than any other area. New Mexico in particular captured my imagination and I would be living there, if I was not living where I am now. Needless to say I was enchanted by the Land of Enchantment. These images are some of my favorites on Summitpost:


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More from JFrishmanIII is found here. He does great work!


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And some great climbing shots from Ship Rock:


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Yeah cool post, especially for someone like myself that has never considered visiting New Mexico. Posts like this makes me reconsider my ambivalence about an area I know nothing about.

Great post! Lots of beautiful scenery here. Thanks for posting...

calebEOC wrote:Yeah cool post, especially for someone like myself that has never considered visiting New Mexico. Posts like this makes me reconsider my ambivalence about an area I know nothing about.

I am glad that you were impressed. New Mexico is definitely a great state with a lot of interesting history and geography. Some of its backcountry is among the most remote in the west. Knowing your affinity for eastern Oregon, I think a lot of New Mexico would have a really, really strong appeal for you. On top of all of that, Santa Fe is one of the coolest, if not the coolest town in America IMHYAO (In My Humble Yet Accurate Opinion).

MarkDidier wrote:Great post! Lots of beautiful scenery here. Thanks for posting...

It was my pleasure.

yes, New Mexico is pretty charming. I lived there for 16 years!
http://www.summitpost.org/new-mexico/530187 - some more photos from NM

Liba Kopeckova wrote:yes, New Mexico is pretty charming. I lived there for 16 years!
http://www.summitpost.org/new-mexico/530187 - some more photos from NM

Liba, I was bummed when you moved to Colorado because the stream of New Mexico posts you had been putting up came to an end, although I know understand the move!

Here's a shot of SR I took right after we got down from it. This was my first NM experience, and throughout college I continued to have great adventures in the state, going on to date a wonderful girl from Taos. We might even move there at some point. T'is truly a great state.

And here is a shot from this past Christmas day in Arroyo Hondo, looking up into the Sangres.

Thanks Bubba, we're definitely the black sheep of the Four Corners, and NM scenery can be a bit of an acquired taste for some. It's nice to be reminded that my home state has its fans. Like Nevada and eastern Oregon, once you get the bug you start seeing a vast and intriguing landscape full of secrets. I've gotten rather jaded towards living in Santa Fe lately, but it's always good to be reminded how lucky I am. For instance, I was pretty pleased to be able to shoot this photo on New Year's Eve and still make it home for dinner!

jfrishmanIII wrote:Thanks Bubba, we're definitely the black sheep of the Four Corners, and NM scenery can be a bit of an acquired taste for some. It's nice to be reminded that my home state has its fans. Like Nevada and eastern Oregon, once you get the bug you start seeing a vast and intriguing landscape full of secrets. I've gotten rather jaded towards living in Santa Fe lately, but it's always good to be reminded how lucky I am. For instance, I was pretty pleased to be able to shoot this photo on New Year's Eve and still make it home for dinner!

WOW! Great catch! Dramatic elements at play in the desert.

jfrishmanIII wrote:Thanks Bubba, we're definitely the black sheep of the Four Corners, and NM scenery can be a bit of an acquired taste for some. It's nice to be reminded that my home state has its fans. Like Nevada and eastern Oregon, once you get the bug you start seeing a vast and intriguing landscape full of secrets. I've gotten rather jaded towards living in Santa Fe lately, but it's always good to be reminded how lucky I am. For instance, I was pretty pleased to be able to shoot this photo on New Year's Eve and still make it home for dinner!

Jackson, that is probably the best image of the Sandia's I have ever seen! Thanks for posting that. If it had already been posted, I definitely would have included it in my little collection. Here is the link, so vote on it folks! This was where I spent my New Years Eve, but I do not think it compares.

What is about Santa Fe that has jaded you?

What is about Santa Fe that has jaded you?

The rich/poor, chic/ghetto divide here is bad and rapidly worsening. Story of modern times, one could argue, but it's still odd living next to a fantasy land for rich art dealers at one end of town, while there's massive poverty, dysfunction, illiteracy, burglary, addiction and violence at the other end. No problems that aren't found in many places, I know, but Santa Fe's self-promotion as a historic-artistic-spiritual idyll makes the reality more jarring. And it really starts hitting home now that we have a kid. SF public schools are bottom-of-the-barrel in a state which itself plumbs the depths of all the national rankings. It'd also be nice if we could ever have any friends in our age range who didn't move away in a year and half because they can't make a decent living. I have multi-generational roots here, but any change in our job situation would make it seriously tempting to look somewhere else.

Bitch, bitch, bitch! Everywhere has problems, the grass is always greener, and so on. It's still great to be in a small city that punches far above its weight in restaurants, has a world class opera, interesting and deep history and local culture and is surrounded by beautiful mountains and deserts.

jfrishmanIII wrote:

What is about Santa Fe that has jaded you?

The rich/poor, chic/ghetto divide here is bad and rapidly worsening. Story of modern times, one could argue, but it's still odd living next to a fantasy land for rich art dealers at one end of town, while there's massive poverty, dysfunction, illiteracy, burglary, addiction and violence at the other end. No problems that aren't found in many places, I know, but Santa Fe's self-promotion as a historic-artistic-spiritual idyll makes the reality more jarring. And it really starts hitting home now that we have a kid. SF public schools are bottom-of-the-barrel in a state which itself plumbs the depths of all the national rankings. It'd also be nice if we could ever have any friends in our age range who didn't move away in a year and half because they can't make a decent living. I have multi-generational roots here, but any change in our job situation would make it seriously tempting to look somewhere else.

I know what you mean. When I lived in Dallas, the school I went to was on one of the oldest streets in the city and it had about a mile of really old, really big plantation style mansions owned by the cities most prominent. It used to the be center of the swankiest part of town. When I got there, the street was still what it had always been, which was very elite, but one block in either direction was total ghetto. It was amazing how such opposites could co-exist in such close proximity. Incidentally, when I lived out there I dated a girl from Santa Fe whose folks still lived in the Santa Fe area. Her dad was an architect and he commuted to Big D three times a week to his offices by flying his own plane. He built his own house in Tesuque and it had like, 6,000 or 7,000 sqft. I am used to slumming it and that was not the side of the Santa Fe area I had previously been exposed to! Even more incidentally, the Frito Pie at the Tesuque Village Market is my all time favorite. Second place is the one at the Golden Light Cafe in Amarillo.

Bitch, bitch, bitch! Everywhere has problems, the grass is always greener, and so on. It's still great to be in a small city that punches far above its weight in restaurants, has a world class opera, interesting and deep history and local culture and is surrounded by beautiful mountains and deserts.

My wife and I love where we live and we have no intention of moving (ever, hopefully), but if we were to, you are living in my greener grass.