Chamisa Trail in Albuquerque, NM

Chamisa Trail is one of the non-gated villages inside High Desert, the master-planned community that climbs the ground east of Tramway Boulevard at the foot of the Sandias. Most people looking at Chamisa Trail homes for sale have already decided they want the foothills. What's left is picking which village, and this one answers that question a specific way: no gate, a small count of houses, and the trail system a short walk from the front door.

The address is 87111, far Northeast Heights, up around 6,000 feet. That elevation is most of the point. Summer evenings run cooler here than down on the valley floor, the city lights spread out to the west, and the granite sits close enough behind the house that you can watch the light move across it all afternoon. Winter brings a little more snow than the bosque sees. Not much. Enough that a steep driveway matters.

The houses

High Desert broke ground in the mid-1990s after the city adopted its sector development plan in 1993, and Chamisa Trail came out of that first wave. So the stock is late-1990s single-family, custom and semi-custom rather than tract. Stucco, mostly. Southwest contemporary with flat roofs and parapets, some Pueblo Revival massing, deep-set windows, walled courtyards. Sizes run from comfortable to substantial without reaching the estate range you'll find in the gated villages farther up the hill.

It's built out. Nothing new is coming, which is worth understanding before you start looking — what's available is whatever happens to turn over in a small village, and that's what you see on this page. Lots are sized to the desert rather than to a lawn: gravel, chamisa, native plantings, real grade change from one side of a street to the other. Homes from this era have usually seen a kitchen or a bath by now, and the ones that haven't tend to show it.

The association, and what it's like to live under

Everything in High Desert falls under the High Desert Residential Owners Association, managed by HOAMCO from an office on Montgomery. Dues are billed quarterly and cover common areas, road maintenance and the security patrol. That patrol is the piece buyers ask about most. High Desert runs its own around-the-clock patrol that coordinates with Albuquerque police and fire, which is how a non-gated village like this one ends up feeling closer to the gated ones than you'd expect.

Be honest with yourself about covenants before you buy here, because they get enforced. Exterior changes go through the association's Modifications Committee. Trash containers live in the garage between Monday pickups. RVs, boats and work trucks don't sit in driveways. A lot of buyers want exactly that, and the streetscape shows the result. If you were planning to park a fifth-wheel out front, look somewhere else.

Trails out the back door

This is what sells the foothills. High Desert built and maintains its own paths through the arroyo greenbelts, and they feed into the public system. The Michial M. Emery Trailhead sits at the east end of Spain Road, named for the engineer who designed High Desert's arroyo network. From there you can pick up Trail 365 running the length of the foothills, or climb Oso Ridge and drop into Embudito Canyon. Behind all of it is roughly 2,650 acres of Sandia foothills open space. Elena Gallegos is a short drive north. You can walk, run or ride from home for years without repeating yourself.

Errands, schools and the drive

Everyday shopping is down the hill at Juan Tabo Plaza and the centers strung along Tramway and Montgomery. Uptown, with Coronado Center and ABQ Uptown, is the nearest real concentration of stores and restaurants. Tramway carries you south to I-40 and north to Paseo del Norte for I-25. Traffic on Tramway at rush hour is the standing complaint up here. By big-city standards it's nothing. It's still a drive, and if both people in the house work on the west side, make the trip once before you commit.

Albuquerque Public Schools has historically assigned this part of High Desert to Georgia O'Keeffe Elementary, Eisenhower Middle and Eldorado High. Boundaries move, so confirm with the district for any specific address.

Who it fits

People who actually use the mountains. Somebody who hikes four mornings a week gets far more out of this address than someone who'll admire the view from the kitchen and then drive to a gym. It works for buyers moving down from larger foothills houses, for people who want a short list of exterior chores, and for anyone who'd rather have a maintained trail network than a golf course. It works less well if you want a big flat backyard, low dues, or a five-minute drive to anything.

Chamisa Trail is small and it's built out, so what's on the market changes slowly. Browse the current Chamisa Trail listings below, and if nothing fits today it's worth checking back or setting up an alert for this village.