EXPLORING THE LAND OF ENCHANTMENT BY MOUNTAIN BIKE

After years of living in a van and exploring the American West, in December of 2021, my husband Macky and I bought a house in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Known as the Land of Enchantment (according to tourism boards) or the Land of Entrapment (according to jaded locals), New Mexico is undeniably a place of contrasts: deep poverty vs extraordinary wealth, dry desert landscape vs snowcapped mountains, and of course, green chile vs red chile on your smothered burrito (the correct answer is Christmas, aka both).

New Mexico is often overlooked as a mountain biking destination, perhaps overshadowed by its northerly and aggressively outdoorsy neighbor, Colorado. Today, I want to share a few of our favorite places to ride in the state, and why we decided to call it home.

has some of the most technical mountain trails in the state -- with sharp rocks, creative features (like this notch between two rock faces) and big drops and jumps that will challenge any rider. This is why several national level enduro races have been hosted here in the past. It’s a great place to go to progress your skills on the mountain bike. While the most technical trails are built on Glorieta Adventure Camps property, you can easily connect into Santa Fe National Forest, if a backcountry adventure is more your style. The ride up to Mt Baldy features 2500 feet of climbing over 6 miles, and from there you can connect into miles and miles of trail –enough to keep even the most endurance-oriented mountain biker busy for a few days.

Glorieta Adventure Camps is a summer camp located just 20 minutes outside of the state capitol of Santa Fe, and one of our favorite places to ride. The area

South Boundary Trail, designated an IMBA EPIC in 2017, is probably the best-known ride in New Mexico, and for good reason. It’s a 21-mile trail stretching from Angel Fire to Taos and while there are few ways to ride it as a loop, it is most often shuttled. The trail has 4300 feet of descending, evenly split between rough, rocky technical sections and beautiful, flowing single track through groves of aspens. Aspen trees, with their signature white bark and slim, straight trunks, are unique among trees in that a grove of aspens is actually a single organism (in fact, the single largest living organism on earth is an aspen grove in Utah). Riding through a grove of aspens, in autumn, when each tree is a vibrant yellow, is one of the most special experiences a person can have on a mountain bike, and this is exactly what you get if you are so lucky as to ride South Boundary Trail in late September or early October. This section of South Boundary is called “Heaven on Earth,” and when the aspen leaves begin to fall, forming a golden patchwork on the ground, it earns its second nickname: The Yellow Brick Road. we moved to Los Alamos is that there were so many sections of technical trail that we knew we would never get bored or run out of ways to progress our skills. We recently received a comment on YouTube from someone saying “why do trail builders build trails that 90% of people can’t make it up?” And while I don’t have an answer to that question, I’m glad they do, because it keeps the challenge alive.

One of our favorite trails in Los Alamos is Quemazon (Spanish for “the burn” – this area was badly burned in fires in 2000 and 2011 and you can still see the bulldozer tracks in the rock from where firefighters drove up the trail to fight the fire). The climb up Pipeline Road is rough and challenging but gives you some amazing views of the town and surrounding valleys. And then the descent is 10 minutes of rocky ledges and brain-jarring fun. It’s a trail that really teaches you to let off the brakes and find the flow.

We joke that there are no easy trails in Los Alamos, and while in reality there are actually a couple trails which might accurately be called “green,” they are few and far between. Many of the trails are old school single track, with janky rocks, awkward switchbacks and extremely technical climbs. One of the reasons

We feel very lucky to live in a place that consistently provides us with challenge on the bike – whether it be physical or technical – and where we can so easily access phenomenal outdoors experiences. It’s safe to say that the Land of Enchantment has, indeed, entrapped us.