The high desert of Santa Fe means experiencing all four seasons in a year, and, as locals learn to joke, sometimes all four seasons in one day. Natural beauty, the rhythm of traditions and the possibility for newness are all reasons to notice up-close details as we make another trip around the sun.
Spring
Spring means at least one snowstorm threatening the fragile apricot blossoms, and wind so powerful it sends sand to scour the paint from your threshold. Life is bursting at the seams, and it’s time for cleaning the acequias, walking on the highway and watching for the birds and butterflies.
Summer
Summer brings afternoon rainstorms and late nights of endless stars. It means roses and hummingbirds, perching on hotel balconies with silly drinks, and joining the fam in the Railyard or up the hill for music as the sun sets. Let’s hope for hiking and soccer and baseball and bikes and not very many fires in
our forests.
Fall
Fall is the intoxicating smell of chile roasting, then hands burning from peeling and packing and freezing. It’s laughing till you snort at the Fiesta Melodrama and basking in a jaw-dropping glow from miles and miles of golden aspen or a ribbon of cottonwood along the river with its own iridescent yellow.
Winter
In winter, the adobe walls warm one side of your body while you walk down the street. When the storms finally come, it’s calling in powder rather than lying to your boss for a sick day—then racing, carefully, up the winding road to the ski basin. Piñon burns in the fireplace and a single candle cradled in sand flickers light from inside a paper bag.
