Santa Fe Canyon Preserve

Sponsored by The Nature Conservancy New Mexico

• Location: New Mexico
• Travel Type: Walking
• Tour Duration: 1 hour
• Language:

About This Tour
Discover a hidden pocket of nature and history just two miles east of downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico! This walking tour guides you along a 1.4-mile loop trail through the beautiful landscape of The Nature Conservancy’s Santa Fe Canyon Preserve, a 525-acre property nestled in the foothills adjacent to the Santa Fe National Forest.

As you follow the trail through the Santa Fe River watershed, the tour narration explores how:
●     Humans have relied on this watershed for food, shelter, community, and spirituality for 10,000 years, first as hunter-gatherers, then as the Tewa-speaking Ancestral Puebloans, followed by Spanish and Anglo-American settlers and, eventually, today’s proud New Mexicans.
●     Fossils in the preserve tell the story of a shallow, tropical sea that existed there 300 million years ago; and its rocks reveal geologic forces deep within the Earth some 1.5 billion years ago.
●     Nature has always shaped human life and, more specifically, our relationships to land and water influence where and how we live.
●     The Santa Fe River, once polluted by heavily forested and grazed nearby lands, is now recovering, thanks to preserves like this one, though climate change still poses an imminent threat.
 
Other Tour Highlights Include:
●     Two-Mile Reservoir, one of Santa Fe’s primary water-storage reservoirs for 100 years, which once filled the valley where this preserve is now with water. (You can spot the “bathtub ring” showing the reservoir’s high-water mark from this trail!)
●     The remains of Old Stone Dam, built in 1881, one of the earliest water-storage and delivery systems that ushered in a new era of prosperity for Santa Fe.
●     Santa Fe’s vast Dale Ball Foothills trail system, which connects to the loop trail in this preserve.
●     The important bosque ecosystems that once stretched along the Rio Grande River and its tributaries.
●     The arrival and disappearance of beavers on the preserve.
●     Other preserve inhabitants, such as deer, bear, bobcats, coyotes, jackrabbits, over 200 species of birds (including turkeys, falcons, and eagles), and a wealth of amphibians.
 
Know Before You Go
●     This tour is a relatively easy walk and will take about an hour to complete, returning you to the same spot where the tour began.
●     Depending on the season and weather, you might need to be prepared to get your feet muddy.
●     Before beginning your walk, check to make sure you have water and sun protection.
●     Bicycles and pets are not allowed on the preserve trail. So please leave Fido at home!
 
Tour Sponsor
This tour is brought to you by The Nature Conservancy, a leading environmental nonprofit working in every state and more than 30 countries to create a world in which nature and people thrive. In New Mexico, The Nature Conservancy has protected more than 1.5 million acres statewide since 1979.

Find More Tours Near You
If you are interested in more audio tours in the American Southwest, check out Highway of Legends, Los Caminos Antiguos, Grand Canyon North and South Rim, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and our downtown walking tour of Santa Fe. (You can listen to most TravelStorys tours both on-site and remotely!) To find more tours wherever your travels take you, visit TravelStorys.com. Every place has a story.