Lake Valley National Back Country Byway

Not much is going on these days in the old silver mining town of Lake Valley —the last residents departed in the mid-1990s—but it once was home to 4,000 people. The mine produced 2.5 million ounces of pure silver and gave up one nugget weighing several hundred pounds. Visit the schoolhouse (which later served as a saloon), walk around the chapel, the railroad depot, and some of the few remaining old homes. At the junction of NM 152 and NM 27 is another mining-era boomtown, Hillsboro, where gold was discovered as well as silver (about $6 million worth of the two ores was extracted). The town, slowly coming back to life with the artists and retirees who've moved in, has a small museum, some shops, restaurants, and galleries. The Hillsboro Apple Festival draws visitors from all over the state on Labor Day weekend. Street vendors sell apples and apple pies, chiles, antiques, and arts and crafts.

The 48-mi Lake Valley National Back Country Byway provides an exciting link to the Wild West. This remote drive (there are no gas stations)—which encompasses the stretch of NM 27 between Nutt and Hillsboro (31 mi) and then NM 152 east from Hillsboro to Truth or Consequences (17 mi)—follows part of the route taken by the Kingston Lake Valley Stage Line, which operated when this region was terrorized by Apache leaders like Geronimo and outlaw bands led by the likes of Butch Cassidy. A Lake Valley-area landmark, west of NM 27, is Cooke's Peak, where the first wagon road through the Southwest to California was opened in 1846.

Not much is going on these days in the old silver mining town of Lake Valley —the last residents departed in the mid-1990s—but it once was home to 4,000 people. The mine produced 2.5 million ounces of pure silver and gave up one nugget weighing several hundred pounds. Visit the schoolhouse (which later served as a saloon), walk around the chapel, the railroad depot, and some of the few remaining old homes. At the junction of NM 152 and NM 27 is another mining-era boomtown, Hillsboro, where gold was discovered as well as silver (about $6 million worth of the two ores was extracted). The town, slowly coming back to life with the artists and retirees who've moved in, has a small museum, some shops, restaurants, and galleries. The Hillsboro Apple Festival draws visitors from all over the state on Labor Day weekend. Street vendors sell apples and apple pies, chiles, antiques, and arts and crafts.