3:10 to Yuma|Ghost Ranch — Red Cliffs Above Abiquiú

Ghost Ranch runs to twenty-one thousand acres of red Chinle mudstone, buff Entrada sandstone and hard cap rock north of Abiquiú — the country Georgia O'Keeffe painted for forty years, and the quarry where the Coelophysis skeletons came out of the ground in 1947. American Cinematographer places the film's principal photography in and around Santa Fe, Abiquiú and Galisteo. Ghost Ranch's own movie tour lists 3:10 to Yuma among the pictures shot on the property, alongside Comanche Moon and Cowboys & Aliens.

This is the rare western location that will take visitors. The ranch is a working education and retreat center, and its guided movie tour drives out to the sites used by productions; the hiking trails are open to day visitors who sign in at the welcome center off US 84. Nothing here is a mothballed set — the mesas did the acting.

Take the Chimney Rock trail. It climbs a few hundred feet in under two miles and puts you on a bench above the whole valley, with Cerro Pedernal, O'Keeffe's flat-topped mountain, holding the southern horizon. The cliffs behind you go from rust to orange to a hard pink in the last hour of light. That is the same thing a cinematographer noticed, and it is why crews keep coming back to a valley three hours from the nearest soundstage.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.