Wildlife

October may be the best month of the year at the Wild Rivers Recreation Area, north of Questa. Summer heat has left the gorge, the light is low and clear, and the trails that drop 800 feet from the rim to the Rio Grande are far more forgiving than they are in July. The recreation area, managed by the Bureau of Land Management within the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument, protects the place where the Red River joins the Rio Grande in a deep canyon cut through dark volcanic rock.

Deer hunters with a tag for northeastern New Mexico have one week to get ready. The first any-legal-arms deer hunts of the fall in Game Management Units 54 and 55 open Saturday, October 24, and run through Wednesday, October 28, according to the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish deer rule for the 2026-2027 license year.

Waterfowl hunters in Carson country get their full season this weekend. New Mexico's regular goose seasons open Saturday, October 17, in the Central Flyway, joining a duck season that is already under way in the North Zone. For hunters from Taos and Questa to Eagle Nest and Angel Fire, it is the start of the long fall window for geese over high-country lakes, river corridors and valley fields.

October brings a quieter, golden window to the Valle Vidal, the large unit of the Carson National Forest in northern New Mexico near the Colorado border. Broad meadows, spruce and fir forest, and cold, clear streams give this high country a different feel from the busier trailheads around Taos and Red River, and fall is when that space is easiest to appreciate.

Mid-October is prime time in elk country, and the current round of hunts is already under way across the Carson National Forest. For hunters holding draw licenses, and for everyone else sharing the trails this week, knowing which units are active helps make for a safer, calmer trip.

Bear hunters planning a fall trip into Carson country need to check the map before they go. In its October 9, 2026 harvest update, the New Mexico Department of Wildlife lists Bear Management Zone 3 as closed for the season, after the harvest limit was met. Zone 3 covers Game Management Units 49, 50 and 53, the units that include much of the high country around Taos, Questa and Red River in the Carson National Forest.

New Mexico's state fish swims in only a handful of cold, clear streams in the southern Rockies — and some of the very best water is in the Carson National Forest's Valle Vidal. The Rio Grande cutthroat trout, the southernmost subspecies of cutthroat trout in North America, is found naturally only in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, which makes every one you catch feel like a small miracle.

Few places in the American West carry a name as fitting as the Valle Vidal — Spanish for "Valley of Life." This 101,794-acre sweep of high mountain country on the Questa Ranger District of the Carson National Forest is exactly that: a vast, rolling basin where elk herds numbering up to 2,000 head drift through meadows at 9,500 feet, where mule deer, black bear, mountain lion, Merriam's turkey, and the rare Rio Grande cutthroat trout all make their homes.

Elk season is the main event of the New Mexico hunting year, and much of the best elk country in the state lies within the Carson National Forest. If you are planning to hunt elk in the Carson country this fall, here is how the 2026 seasons shape up.