Ute Mountain (New Mexico)

Ute Mountain is part of the Taos Mountains which are a subset of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.^[3] The isolated landmark is the highest point of the Cerro del Yuta Wilderness and Rio Grande del Norte National Monument which is administered by the Bureau of Land Management.^[4] The remote mountain is situated 35 miles north of the town of Taos and four miles south of the New Mexico–Colorado border. Ute Mountain is a free-standing, dacitic, extinct Pliocene volcanic cone set within the Taos Plateau volcanic field.^[8] Ute Mountain has a base diameter of five miles and topographic relief is significant as the summit rises 2,500 feet (760 meters) above the surrounding sagebrush-covered basalt plains.^[2] The slopes of the mountain are covered with stands of pinyon pine, ponderosa pine, aspen and Douglas fir.^[9] Precipitation runoff from the mountain drains to the Rio Grande which flows through a gorge along the western base of the mountain.

The mountain is also known in Spanish as "Cerro del Yuta" (Mountain of the Ute).^[10] The origin of the word Ute is unknown; it is first attested as Yuta in Spanish documents. The mountain is named after the Ute people whose self-designation is Núuchi-u, meaning 'the people'.^[11] The state of Utah is also named after the Ute people. This landform's toponym has been officially adopted by the United States Board on Geographic Names,^[5] and has appeared in publications since at least 1875.^[12]