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www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Trails/8215

LINK YOUR TRIP www.lonelyplanet.com/trip-planner

TRIP

2 Motoring the Mother Road: Route 66

27 48 Hours in Las Vegas

31 Hualapai & Havasupai Journey

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In Search of Georgia O’Keeffe

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WHY GO “I am going West,” Georgia O’Keeffe wrote. “…the country seems to call one in a way that one has to answer it.” Yes, O’Keeffe’s West, its desert cut by the Chama River, its silence, its lavender and sage, does indeed call.

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TIME

3 days

DISTANCE

190 miles

BEST TIME TO GO

May – Oct

START

Santa Fe, NM

END

Abiquiu, NM

ALSO GOOD FOR

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A notorious recluse and iconic American artist, Georgia O’Keeffe found her lifeblood in the arid landscapes, endless nothingness and brilliant colors of northern New Mexico. Come into her West, explore its valleys and rocky outcrops, in this search for Georgia O’Keeffe.

Any visit to O’Keeffe country must begin with a stop at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, home to more than 1000 of O’Keeffe’s paintings, drawings and sculptures dating from 1901 to 1984. After a bite at the museum’s upscale café, head north from Santa Fe on Hwy 285. The state’s tourist face fades in Española before shifting again into the river valley farms of acequias, cottonwoods and verdant fields of O’Keeffe’s hometown of Abiquiu, 49 miles northwest of Santa Fe. Settled in 1754 through a Spanish land grant, the tiny town has a few galleries and a lovely church, but O’Keeffe’s Abiquiu is less a centralized town than a landscape.

After the death of her photographer husband Alfred Steiglitz, O’Keeffe moved to Abiquiu permanently from New York City. One of her two homes, purchased in 1940 and open to the public by tour only through Georgia O’Keeffe Home & Studio Tour, sits on the hillside just up the road from the post office. Enclosed by an adobe wall, this classic adobe hacienda blends seamlessly into the landscape and remains much as it did when O’Keeffe lived here. Across Hwy 285 is Bode’s General Merchandise, the best place around for breakfast or a deli sandwich. Pick up a cold drink for a hike through the white rock spirals of White City, one of the most surreal landscapes in O’Keeffe country. The Dar al Islam Mosque, whose members own 1357-acres that include White City, welcomes visitors to their North African–styled mosque. A dirt road leads about a half-mile from the entrance, marked by a discrete arch on the north side of County Rd 155, left to the mosque and right to an unmarked parking lot at the trailhead.

O’Keeffe once called the flat-topped Pedernal, visible from just about anywhere in Abiquiu, her private mountain. “It belongs to me,” she said. “God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it.” And paint it she did, again and again and again. One of the best views is from Abiquiu Reservoir, a deservedly popular swimming spot, with cold, clear waters and sandstone shores that lies about five minutes north of Abiquiu town.

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O’KEEFFE ON FILM

The 1977 documentary Georgia O’Keeffe features spectacular footage of Abiquiu landscape and a rare opportunity to hear O’Keeffe herself talk about her life, her vision, and her art. Produced near the end of her life, with little outside narration, this one-hour documentary inspires even those who know very little about the artist to find their way to her Abiquiu.

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Some of O’Keeffe’s most celebrated works were inspired by the stark and dramatic surrounds of Ghost Ranch. She visited the ranch for the first time in 1934, and in 1940 she purchased a house there. Though this home is closed to the public, the ranch offers one-hour guided tours of the buttes and mesas memorialized in her work, and several hiking trails traverse the grounds.

Forest Service Rd 151, a dirt road impassable in wet weather, cuts south from Hwy 84 into the unspeakably beautiful Chama River Canyon Wilderness. The Chama River flows through the ponderosa pine, willows and