PRICKLY PEAR CACTUS CLINGS TO the mountainside overhanging the two-track road. So when the passenger-side wheels of our Polaris RZR jump a ledge, we teeter left, bringing my driver’s face dangerously close to the spiny pads. Climbing the road burned into a natural shelf, the two-seat off-road vehicle’s tires grip sharply chunked rock while the suspension absorbs bigger protrusions. Still, I look ahead rather than into the gorge on my right and notice that nearly all the contours of the Caballo Mountains are textured with visible rock layers and divided by flood-carved chasms.
“That slab was the size of an ice chest!” one of our companions exclaims, high-fiving my driver, Edna Trager, once she putters to the end of the shelf road. From the passenger seat, I see her smile in response.
We only pause briefly before tipping downhill through Palomas Gap—the hum of 1,000 horsepower turning to the squeal of dusty brakes—traversing the rangeland east of the Caballos and rumbling to the summit of Timber Mountain.
“Lots of people know about our lake
