Seeking advice on mountain access from northern New Mexico

Taos itself is close to Wheeler Peak and adjacent wilderness areas usually via NM150 (have to get near the Taos Ski Area parking lot, so play around with Google maps).  Plenty of access to other mountainous NM trails outside of Santa Fe area, paved via NM475 and 63 .  The Sandias next to Albuquerque can offer a quick adventure (and no hunting season) from various trailheads on the east border of the city.  Northwest and south of Ruidoso are mountains overlooking the desert of Alamogordo (and if lucky White Sands).  Then there’s the Gila around Silver City.  The taller mountains there are still recovering from burn, … maybe in a few years, but there’s the whole river thing going on there … probably pushing your definition of mountains, anyways.

There’s access to southern Colorado mountains too, I prefer Durango (US highway 555).  Colorado gets more crowded as summer progresses but late June the area around Durango is still manageable.

Hope this steers you in the right directions…

Pecos Wilderness is close and is a nice place.

Southern Colorado is quite a ways from the Denver congestion.  The south San Juans, Weminuche, and Sangre de Christos are in pretty easy reach.  I don’t think excessive crowding is a problem in these areas.

I live outside Santa Fe and haven’t actually gotten to Taos yet but am getting familiar w/ the area. I loved in denver and played all over CO for 10 years too. My quick impression is you won’t have any trouble getting access to good outdoor activity in “real” mountains, w/o droves of people (so long as you stay off the I-70 corridor in CO). As mentioned earlier, Taos Ski resort is a good jumping off point and is only 45 min. The range has many peaks over 12k and Wheeler is a 13-er. The range to the east of Taos extends 60+ mi South into the Pecos Wilderness, which has consistently surprised me w/ it’s beauty and variety. 60-80 mi hikes could easily be done in the area. To the North, the mountain ranges near Crestone and Buena Vista have many of COs 14-er mountains, as close as 2 hr from Taos. And you can be at the northern edge of CO in 7 hr, so places like Rocky Mtn NP, Steamboat, Maroon Bells, Black Canyon of the Gunnison and many wilderness areas would be within 4-6 hr. As mentioned, the Gila Wilderness is south ~6 hr and is a stunning area. Grand Canyon, Zion, Bruce Canyon, etc are all 8-10 hr West. The list could go on and on.

Hey, thanks everyone for your input. Very helpful!