The High Rolls plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
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75° on Nov. 14, 1967, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1894. Next is 73° in 1981.
High Rolls’s center stands about 6,560 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,480 ft to 8,190 ft, a difference of 2,710 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Cathey Peak, about 9,640 ft, 10 miles south-southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Abo Formation (sandstone), from the Permian, 284 to 299 million years old.
The section below crosses 5 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 4×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone, dolostone. Age: Permian, 260 to 290 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone, mixed-clastic. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Sandstone, carbonate, evaporite. Age: Permian, 273 to 290 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Permian, 284 to 299 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in High Rolls reaches the desert basins of the Rio Grande country by way of Fresnal Creek, La Luz Creek and the Lost: about 30 river miles. The desert basins of the Rio Grande country has no outlet to the sea: the water leaves only by evaporating or soaking into the ground.
Often dry. About 80% of the way is mapped as streams that run only after rain or snowmelt; the water makes the whole trip in floods.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of High Rolls; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
High Rolls has a oceanic climate. Summer afternoons average 82° in June; winter nights fall to about 26° in January. A normal year brings about 17 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 19 inches of water.
On November 14 High Rolls normally reaches 56° and falls to 33°. The record high is 75°, in 1967; the record low 11°, in 1915. The most rain on this date, 1.50 in, fell in 1968.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1894 at Mountain Park, here, 250 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
