RIO EN MEDIO

The nightmarish flooding arrived in the summer of 2022, and Dr. Leah Morton still walks a quarter mile and crosses the Rio en Medio simply to return to her home; her driveway and crossing were wiped out in the deluge.

In the intervening years, Morton, 79, a physician who continues to practice, has sought to restore vehicle access to her home beside the river, at the end of Rio en Medio Road, but she has had little success. She parks at a trailhead up the road and then uses hiking poles on her trek home, deftly stepping across a path of stones spread across the river.

The 2020 lightning-sparked Medio Fire, which burned 4,000 acres in the Santa Fe National Forest, wrought a burn scar near the small community about 15 miles northeast of Santa Fe, paving the way for the devasta

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