Los Corrales

I keep going back to this rustic beauty near the junction of US 285 and NM 586 in Tres Piedras. The Sangre de Cristos in the distance lend an epic quality to the scene.

Corrals are among the most evocative icons of the American West. They range from sturdy metal structures back at the ranch to ramshackle affairs made from whatever's available on the prairie. The crudest and cheapest materials suffice; the trunks and branches of trees, for example, and all manner of wire even bed springs. I've observed that they are communal structures that anybody can use if idle. In a hundred westerns the corral is where the new hand proves his mettle by breaking the bronc that can't be ridden.

Another favorite is one on US 64 between Taos and Tres Piedras

On the Taos Plateau's TP 120 on the way to the John Dunn Bridge in the Rio Grande National Monument

Aaron Abeyta and Victor Hernandez closing the gate of the communal corral just north of San Antonio Mountain. 

Late afternoon in Sheep Springs, AZ

In the west corrals host cattle, sheep and horses. Whether you call them corrals, from the Spanish corrales, pens or paddocks they’re enclosures meant to keep valuable stock contained and predators out. They are photogenic contraptions for sure. Add a big sky and it's magic.