Santa Fe on Foot,
Adventures in the City Different

(Ocean Tree Books, 1986 , 1989, 1994, 1998) by Elaine Pinkerton is a guide to walking, running, and bicycling adventures within Santa Fe. It includes 14 routes: seven walks, four runs, and three bicycle treks. An excellent guide for outdoor-minded visitors and locals, it has been called by New Mexico Magazine, “the book to take along on any outing around the old and new Santa Fe.”

Much of Santa Fe’s charm lies in what the visitor does not see at first glance. I delve into the past to share the stories behind Santa Fe’s buildings, streets and neighborhoods. Abundant maps and two dozen drawings by local artist Eli Levin/ Jo Basiste.
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Excerpt:
The Pleasures of Walking
Chapter l
Plaza Area/ Canyon Road-Old Santa Fe Trail Walk

Distance: 5 miles
Time: 4 hours

So, you’ve decided to walk and or run Santa Fe! You’ll be in for some of the most beautiful views of mountains, cityscape and high desert to be found anywhere. You’ll see a lot of variety in the supposedly uniform adobe architecture. You will breathe, smell and feel Santa Fe in a way that those behind the wheel never can. And with today’s five-mile tour, you’ll absorb a lot of local history in the bargain.

The nearly 400 years of Santa Fe’s written history, not to mention the untold chronicles of the pueblo that occupied Santa Fe’s site for centuries before, come to light as one walks around the Plaza and through the museums which are included in both this walk and the next. However, do not expect a history disguised as a walking and running book. If you want to learn more, visit the city and state libraries. These institutions offer in-depth reading on every aspect of Santa Fe’s past.

Any tour of Santa Fe must begin with the Plaza and adjacent areas. The Plaza, despite recent talk about the new “center” of town moving south, is still the heart of the city. If no longer true in the usual commercial sense, the Plaza remains culturally, spiritually and artistically the center of things. It was from this heart that the arteries of early Santa Fe led. East Palace Avenue was (and still is) lined with elegant mansions belonging to prominent and prosperous citizens. The academic centers of the mid-1800s, St. Michael’s College and the Loretto Academy , were situated a few steps from the Plaza on Old Santa Fe Trail. It was at the Plaza were Don Diego de Peralta, third governor of New Mexico, established the official capital in 1610. And it is here that the oldest continuously occupied governmental building in the country, the Palace of the Governors, stands so venerably..

All subsequent development of Santa Fe, after the establishment of the Palace, was built around and then grew out from the Plaza. Though a few of their names may be changed, the original roads and trails which radiated outward from the city’s nucleus are still in use today.

Except for one hilly portion, today’s walk is moderate. It is mostly unshaded, however. Your equipment should include a protective hat and/or sunglasses. As with any Santa Fe walk or run, you’re well advised to wear sunscreen, depending on the vulnerability of your skin. A small canteen may make the walk more pleasant on warm days. Santa Fe is known for abrupt changes in weather: take a windbreaker or poncho.

Year round, Santa Fe usually reaches its warmest between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Because of this, I prefer saving an inside look at the Palace of the Governors and Fine Arts Museum until the end of the hike. The walking itself, at a moderate pace, should take only a couple of hours. If you allow half an hour for a picnic lunch and an hour for each museum, you will need four or five hours all told.

Be a bit leisurely at the start. The Plaza, with its wrought iron park benches, brick walkways and canopy of American elms, cottonwood, green ash, honey locust, firs and maples, has an atmosphere of comfort and civility. Like the businesses on three sides, the Plaza has changed and evolved throughout the centuries. Before the beginning of Victorian influences in the 1800s, it was all dirt -- dusty in summer, muddy during winter. Some early photographs show it ringed by trees and circled by an acequia (irrigation ditch).

According to Ralph E. Twitchell’s Old Santa Fe (1925), the Plaza was laid out according to Spanish ordinances of the 1500s. The center of the city was always to be rectangular rather than square, “at least one and a half times as long as it was wide,” in order to allow room for the horses which were always part of military and religious processions. Sometime during the course of events, however, the Plaza became shortened. It once included the business block on the east side and thus extended to the cathedral site.

From time to time, Santa Fe city officials block traffic from the Plaza. Except for the summer months, however, traffic travels around it in a counterclockwise direction. Exercise caution on all Santa Fe streets during the summer; though cars are moving slowly, drivers tend to be sightseeing rather than paying attention to pedestrians.

Think back to the 1600s. The space where you are standing was the scene of daily markets, cockfights, public floggings and social gatherings. All around were the low-lying city’s houses and farms. To the north, as it does today, loomed the block-long Palace of the Governors. Later, during Territorial times, the city’s nucleus was the scene of trading, dance halls and gambling dens. Today the Plaza is still used for concerts, fiesta, downtown fairs such as the Spanish and Indian markets, and community events of all kinds.

Review: New Mexico Magazine
by Cindy Bellinger
Santa Fe on Foot is probably the most readable book about New Mexico's state capital to come out in several years. Intended as a guide for walkers, runners, and bicyclists, the book offers much more than the typical go-here-and-turn-there type of tour. Besides mapping out several loops that may take from two to five hours, Elaine Pinkerton slips in bits and pieces about the area that help turn the city into a vibrant place...But touring really isn't the main point of the book. Exercise is. Pinkerton is an outdoor enthusiast, and after years of walking, running, and biking through Santa Fe and its surrounding foothills, Pinkerton decided to share what she has discovered along the way. She has combined the sights and smells of this high desert town effectively into a pocket companion for exercise.

Another Review written by: Martin Ruff, Travel and Leisure Magazine
—The itineraries mapped out by Elaine Pinkerton in Santa Fe on Foot lead the intrepid visitor to interesting parts of town most tourists never discover.

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