A sixteenth-century Spanish missionary received heavy wounds during a skirmish with Native Americans, who had been forcefully pressured to serve as guides to the traveling Europeans as they ventured from Mexico to the American Southwest. As the missionary paddled out into a lake surrounded by a beautiful mountain range he cried out his last words, “Sangre de Christo, Sangre de Christo,” which translates to English as, “the blood of Christ, the blood of Christ.” His last words lived on as the name of the mountain chain that straddles the New Mexico and Colorado state border.

Since the colonial period, the mountain chain has provided a setting for the intertwining of the Spanish, Native American, and United States’ peoples, creating a unique diverse culture. The region became highly contested under the conditions of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, after the United States gained control of a large amount of territory in the Southwest for a very low price. The treaty established the relationship between the remaining Spanish landholders and the United States, which remained a tense cultural division through the Civil Rights Movement and into today.

The Cimarron Range and the Taos Range make up the Sangre de Christo mountain chain. Within the Taos Range, the tallest point in New Mexico, Wheeler Peak, rises high above sea level reaching 13,173 feet. The Wheeler Peak summit trail is a short 2.2 mile hike, but has a significant elevation gain of about 3,000 feet. Wheeler Peak sits inside of the Carson National Forest, but a number of national and state parks work together to preserve the pristine environment of the Sangre de Christo mountain chain.