Geography

The heart of the Galisteo Basin is the watershed of Galisteo Creek. Collecting rainfall and snowmelt from the southernmost extension of the Rocky Mountains, Glorieta and Rowe Mesas, as well as the broad interior of the basin, Galisteo Creek cycles on a daily and seasonal basis between a moist wash to torrents that rush to the Rio Grande. But the narrow hydrologic definition has grown to include adjacent areas with historical and cultural connections to the focal communities of the basin. Consideration of the Galisteo Basin would be incomplete without including adjacent watersheds of the Santa Fe River on the north and the * on the South. This region encompasses a diversity of resources and vistas that have played an active role in shaping the human history of northern New Mexico.