Desert Stairway

In the light at the end of a winter day, the Jemez Mountains fronted by sepia mesas form a desert stairway to the lowering sun. These highlands were once covered by the Santa Fe National Forest, 47,000 acres of which were destroyed during the Cerro Grande Fire of 2000. The cadence of reclamation and reforestation gradually endows new woodlands to these western slopes of the Rio Grande Rift Valley.