New Mexico’s original spa town
The New Mexico town of Jemez Springs “has long been a place of uncommon natural beauty,” said Bonnie Tsui in The New York Times. The Jemez people migrated to this valley north of Albuquerque in the 13th century. Franciscan missionaries arrived four centuries later, and the Guisewa Pueblo church they established is “now the remarkably preserved Jemez State Monument.” The town became famous for its mineral hot springs, and in the 1870s a bathhouse was built, which was recently restored. These days a nearby Zen meditation center offers “austere yogic calm.” Jemez Springs is also popular with artists, “refugees from big-city living,” hikers, bikers, and anglers. State Highway 4, on which the town is situated, is part of the Jemez Mountain Trail, a 163-mile-long National Scenic Byway that winds through both high desert and mountains. Another “dramatic slice of New Mexico,” located about 20 miles northeast, is the recently established Valles Caldera National Preserve, “a former ranch in a collapsed crater.”
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