Four things to know about La Bajada Hill, and the road between Santa Fe and Albuquerque

Cathy Cook, Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
·2 min read

May 22—The stretch of Interstate 25 along La Bajada Hill has been under construction for the past three years to stabilize the hill. The roadwork is set to wrap up next week.

The road between Santa Fe and Albuquerque is crucial for many commuters , and the new construction is layered atop a long history.

Here are four things to know about La Bajada Hill and the highway that traverses it:

1. The "old road" up La Bajada was more perilous.

The roadway currently in use on La Bajada was widened in the 1980s, said New Mexico Department of Transportation spokesperson Jim Murray.

But the old road scaling La Bajada was a more dramatic passage, according to "55 Stops on the Road to Enchantment," an Albuquerque Journal Day Trip Guide by Frank Zoretich.

For nearly three centuries, the "ascent of La Bajada had been a dramatic highlight of the journey between Albuquerque and Santa Fe," Zoretich wrote. That old road was abandoned in 1932.

That route included 23 hairpin turns, according to a Santa Fe National Forest history of La Bajada, and sometimes tourists hired locals to drive their vehicles up and down the hill.

2. La Bajada is Spanish for "the descent."

Bajada can also translate to "drop" or "downhill," according to the Forest Service history. The hill has a notable descent , and the original road was even steeper.

3. Humans likely gathered food and hunted on La Bajada Mesa long ago.

On the top of La Bajada Mesa, there is evidence of human activity from 5500 B.C.-A.D. 1, according to the Forest Service history.

Human cultures were shifting from eating now-extinct mega fauna to smaller game and gathered wild plants , according to the Forest Service history.

4. La Bajada was featured in an experimental Edison documentary.

A stretch of the old road on La Bajada was in a segment of a short, experimental documentary film created by a crew from Thomas Edison's Menlo Park lab, according to the day trip guide. Zoretich wrote that the snippet of footage is what drove him to walk up the side of the cliff. The movie featured images of cars overheating and stalling on the steep journey up the old road, according to the guide.