Tour of that Hi Lo Country

The Hi Lo Country  Map by James R Gober 1998

My latest novel (#4, just handed in to editor) spends some time in NE New Mexico, also known as The Hi Lo Country. I did not know very much about the Hi Lo when I first started going there. What made me want to go there was the empty space on the map. Over the last few years while adjunct teaching at Colorado College I have made several weekend explorations through the Hi Lo. For a lone traveler in a car, in some ways there is "nothing there". The overwhelming fact is space--empty land and sky. The towns are not towns you've ever heard of until you get there--Clayton NM, Springer NM, Boise City OK, Dalhart TX.  This is ranching country and in years when there is enough rain it's some of the best cattle range in the world. It's almost entirely private land. There's no BLM or National Forest management. You don't see a lot of cattle because the ranches are huge and far apart and cattle have to be ranged sparsely for ranching to be sustainable. I don't know how many hundred acres it would take to sustain a cow/calf in a good year. In a bad year I would imagine the price of hay is very high and a lot of breeding stock get shipped. I'm posting 2 maps of the Hi Lo which I've just come across in Max Evans' Hi Lo Country: Under the One-Eyed Sky, text by Evans and photographs by Jan Haley. Evans is the writer who gave the region its name with his novel The Hi Lo Country.. Still have not seen the Woody Harrelson movie, based on the novel. The novel is an intriguing roughhouse story set in a ranching country that reminds me of the ranching world I found in the Alberta foothills in the early 1970s, working on the GH Ranch in Sundre, Alberta as a very green hand lucky enough to ride sometimes in company with wonderfully skilled Alberta cowboys like Jack Gill and Sid Cunningham.

Heart of the Hi Lo  Map by James R Gober
(Photographs below are all mine, from various trips to the Hi Lo over the last 5 years)

Snowin' on Raton (Pass)

You might sing this song while crossing Raton, if you've been on the road a while.

Between Ocate and Springer NM

Las Vegas NM

Las Vegas NM

Between Las Vegas NM and Mora NM

Between Las Vegas NM and Mora NM

Des Moines NM

Clayton NM

Clayton NM

Between Raton and Des Moines NM

Des Moines NM

Range between Raton and Des Moines NM

Roy, NM

Raton NM

Selfie, Springer NM

North to Roy NM

Cimarron NM

The Plaza, Las Vegas NM

North of Las Vegas NM

Trinidad, CO

Clayton NM

Between Las Vegas NM & Mora NM 

Clayton NM

Clayton NM

Clayton NM

Between Las Vegas NM and Mora NM

Clayton NM

Dalhart, Texas

Clayton NM

Between Tucumcari and Las Vegas NM 

Walsenburg CO

Trementina NM

Clayton NM

Folsom NM

Johnson Mesa, NM

Cimarron NM

Texline, Texas

Dalhart Texas

Clayton NM

Texline, Texas

Between Raton and Des Moines NM

Clayton NM