Wilderness

The Rio Grande cutthroat trout wears its name on its throat — the slash of red beneath the gills that marks every cutthroat — and it carries another distinction: it is the southernmost cutthroat subspecies on earth, native only to the headwater streams of the Rio Grande, Canadian, and Pecos basins of New Mexico and southern Colorado. It is also New Mexico's state fish. And for most of the twentieth century, it was losing its home.

It looms over the Enchanted Circle at 13,167 feet — the highest natural point in New Mexico, the rooftop of the state, visible from Red River, Eagle Nest, and Taos alike. For most of its known history it was called Taos Peak, after the town to its west. Then, in 1950, it was renamed for a man who never lived in New Mexico but mapped it: Major George Montague Wheeler.

At 13,161 feet, Wheeler Peak is the highest point in New Mexico — and the rugged country around it is among the most protected ground in the state. The 19,661-acre Wheeler Peak Wilderness, tucked into the Carson National Forest just south of Red River, became the forest's first federally designated wilderness in 1964.