Santa Fe / Capulin Volcano

Driving from Santa Fe to Capulin, NM | Visiting Santa Fe & New Mexico State Capitol Building | Pecos National Historic Site | Capulin Volcano National Monument | January 2026

We awoke this morning to once again find our water system was frozen — but at least we had learned from yesterday and prepared for it better today. We had breakfast, then wasted no time with beginning today’s adventure. Today, we would be visiting Santa Fe for our first time, and were excited to see not only the state capitol but also be immersed in Southwestern architecture in the historic downtown area. As big lovers of this architecture style, we naturally find it enjoyable to browse online real estate listings in this area, taken by the adobe style homes, and sometimes consider it to be on the short list of places where we could see ourselves living someday. However, the cold and snow we were experiencing today reminded us that just because it looks like the Southwest didn’t mean that we would enjoy the perks of living in the Southwest year round… But for our first visit here, we didn’t hate it, and we hope we’ll find our way back here (especially in other seasons when we can actually enjoy the mountains more!)

We started by going to the capitol building and walking around the round structure. We stand by the rule that state capitol buildings are most enjoyable to visit on early Sunday mornings because they aren’t at all busy then, and lucky for us today was Sunday. However, we weren’t as lucky as we were in Salt Lake City where we enjoyed getting to walk through the beautiful building all on our own! After that, we made our way deeper into the old town district to see the cathedral building. When we arrived, Curtis was almost convinced he had been here before, but after asking his mom he’s not so sure. Either way, we enjoyed our quick walk around town, the outside of the cathedral and the adjoining courtyard.

After that, we got back on the road to continue our drive East. We had three potential national park sites that we could visit today: Pecos, Fort Union, and Capulin Volcano. We had visited the first two before, so Capulin was sort of our priority, but we didn’t mind returning to one of the others to break up the drive. We decided that out of the others, we would rather return to Pecos, so we made our way there. After walking through the museum, we began the loop trail through the park, just like we did last time. Our last visit was in November of 2021, and on that trip it was our first hike that really made us feel like we were back in the Southwest after many years away, so every part of the trail felt magical: the cactus and other desert plants, the red dirt, and the adobe ruins of the Pecos people. Today, it would be one of our last hikes in the desert before this vacation was over, so it was just as special to us but for different reasons. I also could just picture us here last time, walking the trail with Charlotte and making her pose for pictures inside the structure. It was much snowier this time, and they had moved the bench on which we posed for a family picture, but we still snapped a picture in that spot with her in the front of our minds. Oh how we miss our tiny travel buddy.

After our walk, we took our lunch to go and got back on the road heading to Capulin Volcano, hoping we allotted enough time to drive up and make the entire hike around the volcano. We had wanted to visit during our 2021 road trip, but definitely didn’t leave enough time for ourselves, though we realized today that it was probably for the better since dogs aren’t allowed on the trail, which we both wanted to hike. We arrived at the park in the early afternoon, and after stopping at the visitor center, we made our way up the 2 mile drive to the trailhead for the crater rim trail. Most of the road was cleared from snow, besides a few spots in the shade on the North slope, near the top.

When we made it to the top, we took a little time to enjoy the view to the West, then strapped on our microspikes in preparation for a potentially snowy trail. Shortly after starting the trail, heading in a counter-clockwise direction, we found that the sidewalk was much more clear than we expected. We began to think we were a little over prepared, until about halfway through as we neared the Northern part of the trail. At that point, I was certainly glad to have them on, especially on short and slick downhill sections! By the time we reached the summit, we found ourselves in deep snow where snowshoes would have been better, and the deep snow continued for most of our descent.

Besides the snow, we really enjoyed this hike and the views in all directions. The peak had the prominence that Curtis needed for his goal, making this his last official p-300 for this trip. I was happy to get to join him for it! We enjoyed seeing other craters surrounding us, as well as the Rockies in the far distance covered in snow. It was a great last hike in the Southwest for this trip, and we’ll cherish the memories until we find ourselves back in the desert.

After returning to the van, we drove a little further East until we came to a rest area where we planned to spend the night. The snow had barely been cleared from the lot, but it ended up being a pleasant place to stay — the highway wasn’t too loud and it didn’t get as cold as it had been over the last few nights.