Costilla Creek is a tributary of the

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo language, Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States a ...

in Colorado and New Mexico.

Course

The creek rises in the

Sangre de Cristo Mountains The Sangre de Cristo Mountains (Spanish language, Spanish for "Blood of Christ") are the southernmost mountain range, subrange of the Rocky Mountains. They are located in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico in the United States. The mountai ...

in far southern

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

at the confluence of East Fork Costilla Creek and West Fork Costilla Creek. It then flows southward across the border into

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

. Here it is impounded by the privately-held Costilla Reservoir on the Vermejo Park Ranch. From there, it flows generally southwest, receiving the waters of its tributary Comanche Creek at the north end of Valle Vidal. Costilla Creek then begins to curve towards the northwest towards a point where it meets New Mexico State Road 196. The creek then travels generally northwestward, following alongside State Road 196 through the small town of Amalia. It leaves the mountains after passing through a diversion dam — the beginning of the Acequia Madre irrigation ditch — and just before flowing through the town of Costilla, entering the broad, flat plain of the Taos Plateau volcanic field. Flowing north from Costilla, the creek enters Colorado at Garcia. It then flows in a broad semi-circle to the west, eventually flowing to the south, just west of Jaroso, Colorado and crossing the border, once again entering into New Mexico. Soon after crossing the border, the creek turns to the southwest and empties into the

, its mouth in a gorge just to the northwest of Ute Mountain.

Fishing

Popular with anglers, the creek offers fishing for

rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributary, tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia. The steelhead (sometimes called steelhead trout) is an Fish migration#Classification, ...

brown trout The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a species of salmonid ray-finned fish and the most widely distributed species of the genus ''Salmo'', endemic to most of Europe, West Asia and parts of North Africa, and has been widely introduced globally ...

, and Rio Grande cutthroat trout. The Rio Costilla is stocked on a regular basis with trout from spring to fall. The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish implemented the final phase of the Restoration of Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout (''Oncorhynchus clarki virginalis'') and the Native Fish Community to the Upper Rio Costilla Watershed project in March 2021, which should be complete by the fall of 2021. The removal of non-native fish such as non-native rainbow trout and non-native suckers through this initiative should provide high-quality angling opportunities for native trout and expand the range of interconnected populations of

cutthroat trout and other native fish, decreasing their likelihood of becoming threatened or endangered species.http://www.wildlife.state.nm.us/download/fishing/rio-grande-cutthroat-trout/rio-costilla/Environmental-Assessment-Rio-Costilla-Project.pdf

Climate

The North Costilla SNOTEL weather station is near the confluence of the east and west forks of Costilla Creek, at an elevation of 10600 feet (3231 m).

References

{{Reflist Rivers of Taos County, New Mexico Rivers of Costilla County, Colorado Tributaries of the Rio Grande