America’s newest high-altitude thru-hike: Santa Fe to Taos

Its not often you have the opportunity to enjoy something completely new in the world of hiking and high-altitude adventure, but that is just the case now in New Mexico. On Saturday evening (May 31) we attended a presentation and guidebook signing at Travel Bug Books for America’s newest high altitude trek: The Santa Fe to Taos Thru-Hike.

This 132 mile long trek takes you from Santa Fe Plaza in the heart of this lovely capital city, high up in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to well over 11,000 feet, and eventually back down to the gorgeous city of Taos and its historic plaza.

Conceived, organized, trekked, and established over a ten-year period by avid hiker Pam Neely, this thru-hike will take you through some of the most stunning scenery in New Mexico. This includes: Santa Fe Ski Basin, Trailriders Wall, the Pecos Wilderness, Santa Barbara Divide, El Nogal, two national forests, and numerous streams and alpine lakes including Baldy and Nambe (see photos).

The new pocket-sized guidebook is an excellent resource for those planing to hike straight through or planning to tackle the trek in pieces and parts. She also a series of six 11″ x 17″ maps available depicting segments of the route landing from 18.7 to 26.2 miles in length. The guidebook and maps identify key points along the trail, other connecting trails, suggested camping places, points of access to water sources, and a variety of other useful information.

Here are some non-amazon places to order the guidebook:

• https://santafetotaos.org/shop/
• Travel Bug Specialty Books in Santa Fe: 505-992-0418 or via
• https://bookshop.org/shop/TravelBug
• Collected Works in Santa Fe: 505-988-4226 or via https://bookshop.org/shop/collectedworks

One may start at 7,000 feet at either end of this thru-hike, but in-between are a series of climbs and descents that truly define this storied and enchanted landscape. Whether you hike the entire 132 mile length or simply small day-hike segments, the Santa Fe to Taos Thru-Hike will stir your senses to the rugged and serene beauty of New Mexico. Peace!

Anybody know of maps that reconstruct land use patterns in Europe over the past 1000 years or so?

Boosts welcome.

> At our current rates of burning coal, fossil gas and petroleum, if we got 8 inches or so of sea level rise by 2050, the world’s largest 136 coastal cities would suffer $1 trillion per year of losses.

#ClimateChange #ClimateScience #SeaLevel #geography

The 136 Largest Coastal Cities, including Egypt's Alexandria, face $1 Trillion Losses per Year from Sea Level Rise by 2050 https://www.juancole.com/2025/05/including-alexandria-trillion.html

At 69.792° N 108.241° W on Victoria Island, Nunavut, a lake contains an island that holds a second lake with a third-order island. Verified by satellite imagery and highlighted by National Geographic, this is the only known example of a lake on an island in a lake on an island in a lake.

Today I wondered how far it is from John O’Groats in Scotland to The Isle of Wight on the southern coast of England.

It’s 891 km (553 miles) according to https://www.doogal.co.uk/MeasureDistances

The Great Basin is one of the most extreme places in America.
It’s bigger than France, filled with deserts, surrounded by mountains—and no water flows out.
Explore the full story
https://www.ryanjhite.com/2025/05/27/the-great-basin-americas-land-of-extremes/
#Geography #GreatBasin #ClimateCrisis #AmericanWest #DesertFacts

Which continent has the most birds by weight?

Retoot to help gather a wider range of answers.
#geography #biology #ornithology #bird #birds

Every once in a while the stars align and you get to work on a paper that aligns all your interests. For me it was this side project:

Speculative Ecologies: Anxieties, Hierarchies, and Anarchies in the Natures of Speculative Fiction

(1/4)

https://www.literarygeographies.net/index.php/LitGeogs/article/view/437

Brooks Range, Alaska, 2009. Sebastião Salgado. The Brooks Range is Alaska's northernmost mountain range, stretching 700 miles-1126.54 kilometers across the Arctic Cir. Known for its rugged peaks, vast wilderness, diverse wildlife and it's a unique & vital ecosystem. #photography #nature #ecology #science #geography

In Invisible Lines, geographer Maxim Samson draws readers into the unseen architecture of our world— curious and yet invisible borders, boundaries, and barriers that we humans take for granted. Yet these places shape our identities, countries, politics, languages, customs and histories. This is an absolutely fascinating deep dive into how lines—both literal and metaphorical—divide, define and disorient us. #MaximSamson #Geography #Politics #History #InvisibleLines #Book…

http://contentcatnip.com/2025/05/25/book-review-invisible-lines-by-maxim-samson/

https://www.earth.com/news/scientists-confirm-the-location-of-earths-missing-eighth-continent-zealandia/

1/2 The supremacy of the USA, the USA's claim to power ... It helps to compare the geographical conditions and map distortions with the rest of the world from time to time to get a new perspective.

Source: http://thetruesize.com - by moving countries you can see the mercator projection's distortions.
Mercator projection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection

UN's #WorldCourt (#ICJ) rules that #Gabon has to give three tiny #islands it seized in 1972 back to #EquatorialGuinea. Having the islands implies rights to surrounding oil-rich seabed, though the actual sea #borders around them are unsettled.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgq204n1vxo

#geography #sovereignty #Africa #WestAfrica #AtlanticOcean #internationallaw @geography @geopolitics

#EveryCountryIsUnique puzzle 709

Which country is the only one in the world with these 4 properties?
- Its name has at least 10 letters
- Its flag contains at least these colors: blue and white
- Its capital city has a population greater than 1M
- Has never won a gold medal in the Summer Olympics

Answer in the comments with a Content Warning! #Geography #Quiz #Vexillology

#Solarpunk #writing and #art idea:

A #watershed #map instead of a political or elevation one.

Imagining a world divided into bio-regions not by some arbitrary political body, but by the rivers and water circulation.

We could make it into a beautiful symbol of a sustainable future.

More about it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drainage_divide

The one below is a work of https://www.grasshoppergeography.com/

"A Half Built Garden" book by Ruthanna Emrys implements such a vision!

Back to maps this week for our archive article, as Tar-Palantir takes us through the on the history of mapping with his Cartload of Cartography article series.

In this part one, the series starts with a look at ancient maps and mapping, and the ways you might use it for making your own fictional worlds...
https://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?msg=124352

Wonders of Street View

Random Interesting Sights on Google Street View

https://welchwrite.com/blog/2025/05/19/wonders-of-street-view-shared/

A quiz before I go to bed. Without googling or anything, this place holds a "geographical world record." Can you guess which one?

Edit/Hint 1: The world record is about size (but not the world's shortest canal)

Edit 2: The answer is: this is the narrowest straight in the world (9 meters wide) Both walkways are technically on two different islands (even if everyone considers them as the same for obvious reasons)

Making Geography Matter; The Past and Present of a Changing Discipline, 2025

Edited by Noel Castree & Trevor Barnes & Jennifer Salmond

What is the purpose of Geography? What do geographers study and why? How do they seek to shape the world they interrogate? This book addresses these questions by examining the lives and works of individual geographers, both past and present.

@bookstodon
#books
#nonfiction
#geography