Ratón Pass is a 7,834 ft (2,388 m) elevation mountain pass.
Ratón is Spanish for "mouse". The pass crosses the line of volcanic mesas that extends east from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains along the state line, and furnishes the most direct land route between the valley of the Arkansas River to the north and the upper valley of the Canadian River, leading toward Santa Fe, to the south. The pass now carries Interstate 25 and railroad tracks.
The difficulty of bringing caravans over rocky and mountainous Raton Pass kept most of the wagon traffic on the Cimarron Cutoff of the Santa Fe Trail until the 1840,s. Afterwords, the Mountain Branch, which here approaches Raton Pass, became a more popular with traders, immigrants, gold seekers, and government supply trains.
The pass is a historically significant landmark on the Santa Fe, a major 19th-century settlement route betweenKansas City, Missouri and Santa Fe.
This caches a tough one to place as the area is ripe with potential! It is a bison tube. Please be respectful of the area and its historic decor. Tread lightly while resting from the road, and enjoy!