“Okay, so if there are Ghost Riders in the sky, they have to come from SOMEWHERE, right?”---W. T. Killeen
It’s a short drive and a beauty from Santa Fe to Ghost Ranch, little over an hour along scenic U.S. 84 and through the towns of Espanola and Abiquiu. You’ll be pretty much by yourself the last 39 miles, free to enjoy the wide skies of the high desert, to inhale the vast array of subtle colors, to appreciate the absence of man-made interruptions. Arthur Pack, the editor of Nature magazine, told artist Georgia O’Keeffe the Ghost Ranch area was “the best place in the world,” and apparently she agreed with him, spending much of the remainder of her life there.
Ghost Ranch is part of Piedra Lumbre (“Shining Rock”), a 1766 land grant to Pedro Martin Serrano from Charles III of Spain. The Rito del Yeso is a stream that meanders through the canyons and gorge, providing a drought-resistant source of water for life to thrive. The canyon was first inhabited by the Archuleta brothers, cattle rustlers who enjoyed the coverage and invisibility the canyon provided as well as their ability to see for miles down the valley. The brothers created two homes there and herded stolen cattle through the night to Box Canyon. By transporting the cattle through streams, footprints would be lost and the thieves could not be tracked….as if they disappeared into thin air, like ghosts.
A man named Roy Pfaffle won the deed to the property in a poker game in 1928. His wife, Carol Stanley, decided to name the place Ghost Ranch, later constructing guest quarters and creating an exclusive dude ranch visited by many of the wealthy and creative people of the time. You’ve seen a lot of the place yourself. Much of the movie City Slickers was filmed there, as well as parts of No Country for Old Men, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Silverado, All the Pretty Horses, The Lone Ranger and scads more.
Ghost Ranch is now a retreat and education center owned by the Presbyterian Church and open to the general public for a small fee. Georgia O’Keeffe’s little cottage exists intact along with her tiny farm and a garden which is still tended. A camera in the garden maintains a 24-hour vigil and the live feed is relayed back to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe. Tours of the grounds are offered, horses are available for riding and there are a number of hiking trails on the property. When we went fairly early in the morning, there were less than two dozen tourists on the grounds and we passed few of them on our morning hike to the iconic Chimney Rock. Like New Mexico, itself, Ghost Ranch, near the wee town of Abiquiu, is an oft-forgotten treasure available for a song. Some people even think it’s the best place in the world.
(1) Bill at the cabin used in the movie ‘City Slickers,’ (2) Georgia O’Keeffe’s cottage
Georgia On My Mind
“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way. Things I had no words for.”---Georgia O’Keeffe
Spectacular as it may be, Ghost Ranch would be a largely forgotten entity had Georgia O’Keeffe not settled there. One of the most significant and intriguing artists of the twentieth century, O’Keeffe was known internationally for her boldly innovative art. Her distinct flowers, dramatic cityscapes, glowing landscapes and images of bones against the dark desert sky are iconic and original contributions to American Modernism. She has often been called the Mother of the genre.
Georgia Totto O’Keeffe was born on November 15, 1887, the second of seven children, growing up on a farm near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905-06 and with the Art Students League in New York in 1907-08. Under the direction of William Merritt Chase, F. Luis Mora and Kenyon Cox, she learned the techniques of realist painting. The direction of her artistic practice shifted dramatically in 1912 when she studied the revolutionary ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow.
Dow’s emphasis on composition and design afforded O’Keeffe an alternative to realism. She experimented for two years while she taught in South Carolina and west Texas, seeking to find a personal visual language through which she could express her feelings and ideas. She began a series of abstract charcoal drawings in 1915 that represented a radical break with tradition and made O’Keeffe one of the very first American artists to practice abstraction. Her drawings came to the attention of Alfred Stieglitz, an art dealer and internationally known photographer, who was the first to exhibit her work in 1916. By the mid-1920s, O’Keeffe was recognized as one of America’s most important and successful artists. Stieglitz later became her husband.
In the summer of 1929, Georgia O’Keeffe made the first of many trips to New Mexico. The stark landscape, distinct indigenous art and unique style of adobe architecture inspired a new direction in her artwork. For the next two decades, she spent a significant amount of time living and working in the state before making it her permanent home in 1949, three years after Stieglitz’ death.
Georgia O’Keeffe was not your average woman. She cut an extraordinary figure in her heyday, a rural modernist among the cows, in severe black suits and Oxfords, a man’s felt hat jammed on her black hair. She spent much of her private time alone, hiking and camping in the canyons, getting high on the electric drama of the desert sky.
Picture the young O’Keeffe and you conjure up two images. In the first, she is buttoned up, reserved, a spartan figure composed of monochromatic parts: white skin, black eyes, white shirt, black jacket, hands twisted like a flamenco dancer, hair pulled sharply back or hidden beneath a bowler hat. In the second, she is categorically unbuttoned, tumbling sleepily out of a white chemise or dressing gown, her breasts and belly bared, witchy locks tumbling over her shoulders. Both images were the creation of Stieglitz, a master of his art. The public was simultaneously fascinated and appalled by O’Keeffe’s bravado and she became far more recognized than your average painter. For her part, Georgia commented, “I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life….and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.”
Georgia O’Keeffe kept doing those things until 1986, when she died at age 98 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a stone’s throw from her beloved Ghost Ranch. The place remains today as it was then, a paradise largely unexplored. Spend a few hours there if you ever get the chance. Twilight would be good. Watch the subtle colors slowly change on their welcoming pallette, the broad canyon walls, and for a moment you might as well be Georgia O’Keeffe. Despite the passage of decades, you’ll see the place exactly as she did.
The Chimney Rock Hike
A moderately challenging hike is a blockbuster remedy for all that ails you. Hikes lower your risk of heart disease, improve blood pressure and blood sugar levels, boost bone density, build strength in the glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings and other muscles in the hips and legs. They strengthen your core, improve balance, help control your weight and boost your mood. The best hikes, like certain cereal boxes and Cracker Jack, even have a prize at the end, a reward for your perseverance in getting to the bottom (or top) of things. There are waterfalls, magnificent lakes, hot springs, canyon overlooks and often the peak of the mountain.
When you are younger, you might climb past the invigorating Vernal Falls, then Nevada Falls, and finally on to Half Dome in Yosemite or perhaps endure the day-long challenge of the Virgin River through the canyons of Zion, or maybe even the rigors of the Pacific Crest Trail. When you are in your late seventies, you’ll be perfectly happy with the three-mile Chimney Rock hike at Ghost Ranch, which starts at 6600 feet and climbs over reasonable terrain to 7100. It’s about an hour to the top not counting photo time and a lazy thirty-five minutes back down, temperatures in the low to mid-80s, plenty to look at along the way. If you’re Siobhan, you’ll add a few minutes for accumulating rocks along the trail and inserting them in Bill’s backpack, then a mountaintop lunch consisting of an apple and a trail bar while you commune with nature….leaving a generous core, of course, for whichever critter is first on the scene. An unhurried hike gives one enough time to soak up the flavor of the area, get the lay of the land, start the juices flowing.
At the start, the Chimney Rock Trail seems simple enough, especially with a clear view of the target in the distance. Hikers follow a moderate path across an arroyo, ascend over rocks increasing in size, eventually reaching a narrowing trail near the edge of a cliff where the destination is temporarily hidden from view. Small numbered squares from 1 to 20 tacked to poles and rocks advise of one’s progress. A couple of bottles of water and you’re there, unpacking the lunch and snapping off the requisite photos at an overlook adjacent to Chimney Rock. If a hiker preferred to reach the bottom of the rock, itself, it would require a deviant path along an unmarked trail but there is evidence some hikers choose that option.
Going back down is simple, right? Just follow the path you took on the way up. Here’s a bulletin: things don’t always look the same going in the opposite direction. After descending to the 18 marker, we suddenly found ourselves winding back to 19, another mystery to be solved. Where are those trailside cairns when you really need one? Fortunately for us, genius-level hiking ability is not required to solve these riddles and we made it to the bottom without further consternation. Good thing, too. It was past time for a short drive to Abiquiu and a quick sandwich at Bode’s General Merchandise, where a generous crowd showed their appreciation for the place by wearing $15 tee shirts screaming Bode’s General Merchandise. We’d like to talk to this Bode. It takes a brilliant mind to get customers to spend $15 on a product advertising your place of business.
(1) Chimney Rock in the distance, (2) An elevated look at Ghost Ranch, (3) Closing in on the target, (4, 5) Scenes from the trail, (6) Siobhan getting high, (7) Arrival.
Ghost Ranch Finale: Parting Shots From The Experts
Next Week: The Road To Taos. Want to live in an Earthship? Over 200 people say they do. These Taos ships are going up faster than hot-air balloons in Albuquerque. We’ll tell you all about it in next week’s informative episode, which also includes Indian tales, massive geological faults and directions to the lost town of Ojo Caliente, where you can soak in the mud and enjoy wonderful health benefits. Siobhan and Bill did it. The benefits haven’t arrived yet but we’re sure they’re coming.
That’s all, folks….
That’s all, folks….
