Some of the Southwest’s more famous characters got famous, not by way of rich gold, silver and copper mines like Ed Schieffelin who struck the famous or infamous (depending on your point of view) Tombstone Silver Lode or by being eccentric like Doc Holiday.  No, some of them become legendary because they were the first. [...]

More than 60,000 years ago, a giant volcano blew its top. A rain of cooling cinders formed a perfectly shaped cone over 1,000 feet high. Today, it’s known as Capulin Volcano. The irregular rim of the crater is about a mile in circumference and the crater about 400 feet deep. Rising 1,300 feet above the [...]

California Condors are a dramatically endangered bird. In 1982, the condors were balanced on the brink of extinction, primarily due to lead poisoning from bullet fragments left behind during hunting season. A captive breeding program began in 1983 to save the species. As part of the program, California Condors were introduced to the ecosystem in [...]