Experience the best of Ruidoso

Ruidoso lies at about 2,100 metres in the Sacramento Mountains of south-central New Mexico, in a forested canyon along the Rio Ruidoso, whose name is Spanish for noisy. The town began as a logging and farming settlement and has grown into a mountain retreat for people from the hot lowlands of Texas and the Tularosa Basin. The Mescalero Apache Reservation lies to the south, and Sierra Blanca, a peak of more than 3,600 metres on tribal land, towers behind.

Ski Apache, on Sierra Blanca and run by the tribe, is the area's ski mountain, and Ruidoso Downs Race Track has quarter-horse racing. Lincoln, a preserved Old West town to the east, was the scene of the Lincoln County War and Billy the Kid's escape in 1881. Capitan, to the north-east, is where the story of Smokey Bear began, with a cub rescued from a forest fire in 1950, and White Sands National Park lies across the Tularosa Basin to the west.

New Mexican cooking dominates the menus, with red and green chile, enchiladas and sopaipillas drizzled with honey. Summers are cool compared with the desert below, the aspens turn gold in autumn, and winter brings snow.