High Road to Taos Scenic Byway

Fifty-six miles of road between Santa Fe and Taos, and the High Road to Taos takes the long way — through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, past Spanish land grant villages that have been farming and weaving and building adobe churches since before the United States existed. Truchas, established by royal land grant in 1754 as a walled compound against Apache and Comanche raids. Las Trampas, where settlers completed the San José de Gracia Church in 1776, a National Historic Landmark still standing. The Santuario de Chimayó, built between 1811 and 1816, where pilgrims still come — especially on Good Friday — to take dirt from El Posito, a hole in a side chapel floor said to heal the sick. This is not a scenic drive. It's what stayed.