West Mesa in Albuquerque, NM

West Mesa is one of Albuquerque's Community Planning Areas, reaching west from the Rio Grande to the city's edge at Atrisco Vista Boulevard, between Interstate 40 and Gila Road. Most of the ground came out of the Atrisco Land Grant, made in 1692 and widened in 1768; descendants of the heirs formed Westland Development in 1967 to manage it, and the west side became one of the few directions the city could grow. The volcanic escarpment of Petroglyph National Monument walls off the far side, and building stops where the lava starts. Coors Boulevard carries the shopping, and the street pattern is plainly suburban.

The city runs two facilities under the West Mesa name. The community center holds meeting rooms, classrooms, an arts and crafts room, a fitness center, a mini gym, a children's library, a game room and a computer lab; free membership there works at all eighteen city community centers. The aquatic center is the larger draw: an Olympic pool that sets up as eight 50-meter lanes or two dozen 25-yard lanes, two diving boards, seating for 800, an indoor pool with zero-slope entry and a tower slide, plus an outdoor pool with two more slides.

Coors Boulevard ties the area to the mesa planning areas north and south. ART, the free Central Avenue rapid bus, begins at the Central & Unser Transit Center and runs east through Downtown and Nob Hill.

Trailheads sit along the escarpment; Rinconada Canyon is a 2.2-mile round trip past as many as 300 petroglyphs on basalt that erupted roughly 200,000 years ago. Bosque paths follow the river near Montaño, and Double Eagle II Airport occupies the far western end.