Ladrón Peak is an isolated, highly visible peak in central

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 ...

, lying about 50 mi (80 km) southwest of

Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), also known as ABQ, Burque, the Duke City, and in the past 'the Q', is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, Bernal ...

. Ladron Peak is the only major peak in the compact range (really one large massif) known as the Sierra Ladrones, which lies between the

Rio Puerco The Rio Puerco is a tributary of the Rio Grande in the U.S. state of New Mexico. From its source on the west side of the Nacimiento Mountains, it flows about ,Calculated in Google Earth generally south to join the Rio Grande about south of ...

to the east and the Rio Salado to the southwest. Despite its conical shape and its proximity to

lava flow Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a Natural satellite, moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a Fissure vent, fractu ...

s and small volcanoes, it is not itself a

volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ...

, but an

igneous intrusion In geology, an igneous intrusion (or intrusive body or simply intrusion) is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and com ...

. The core of the mountain is

Precambrian The Precambrian ( ; or pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pC, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of t ...

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

. The peak rises dramatically from its surroundings on all sides; the summit is almost above the Rio Grande Valley, to the east. The name of the peak means "thief", and "Sierra Ladrones" means "thieves' mountains."

Navajo The Navajo or Diné are an Indigenous people of the Southwestern United States. Their traditional language is Diné bizaad, a Southern Athabascan language. The states with the largest Diné populations are Arizona (140,263) and New Mexico (1 ...

and

Apache The Apache ( ) are several Southern Athabaskan language-speaking peoples of the Southwestern United States, Southwest, the Southern Plains and Northern Mexico. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan ho ...

raiding parties, and later

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

and

Anglo Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to, or descent from England, English culture, the English people or the English language, such as in the term ''Anglosphere''. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people of British d ...

rustlers, used the mountains as hideouts, hence the name. Evidence of human occupation goes back over 10,000 years, and more recent prehistoric use occurred by the Mogollon and

Ancestral Puebloan The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as Ancestral Pueblo peoples or the Basketmaker-Pueblo culture, were an ancient Native American culture of Pueblo peoples spanning the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southe ...

cultures. Today, part of the range is included in the

Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge The Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge is a protected area of New Mexico managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the National Wildlife Refuge System. It is located in the far northern fringes of the Chihuahuan Desert, 2 ...

, administered by the

US Fish and Wildlife Service The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is a U.S. federal government agency within the United States Department of the Interior which oversees the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats in the United States. ...

. The rest of the range is a mix of BLM and private land. Ecologically, Ladrón Peak is a

sky island Sky islands are isolated mountains surrounded by radically different lowland environments. The term originally referred to those found on the Mexican Plateau and has extended to similarly isolated high-elevation forests. The isolation has s ...

, supporting vegetation and wildlife not found in the surrounding grasslands. It is high enough to have coniferous forests on its upper slopes. Animal species include mountain lion, bear, pronghorn, elk, deer and reintroduced

desert bighorn sheep The desert bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis nelsoni'') is a subspecies of bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis'') that is native to the deserts of the United States' intermountain west and southwestern regions, as well as northwestern Mexico. The ...

Notes and references

External links

* Mountains of New Mexico Landforms of Socorro County, New Mexico Mountains of Socorro County, New Mexico {{NewMexico-geo-stub