After completing Harding County's highpoint early this morning, I drove the flat ranch country south out of Harding County toward San Jon on Interstate-40, east of Tucumcari. The countryside in southern Harding County is pretty interesting as the highway cuts down a steep set of cliffs and for a while travels through some interesting badlands. This was unexpected to me but I enjoyed the sights. San Jon (and Interstate-40, for that matter) sit below cliffs which serve as the northern boundary of the Llano Estacado, a high, flat plateau covering most of eastern New Mexico and bleeding into Texas. Curry county sits completely atop this plateau, and as such, has virtually no topographical relief to speak of, other than flatness.

I took highway NM-39 south out of San Jon and up the cliffs and breaks to gain the plateau. Staying on NM-39, the designation turns into NM-469 after a couple of 90-degree turns. At the junction of NM-469 and NM-275 one mile north of the community of Wheatland, I took NM-275 east 4 miles to the Curry-Quay county line. A dirt road (Curry CR-0) sits right on the county line; the signs are offset to the shoulder, of course. I went north 2.1 miles on this variable-quality dirt road, which was soft in places and looked to be possibly nasty in wet weather. I had dry conditions, which was nice. This road comes to a T-junction; this is the extreme northwest corner of Curry county, and its highest point. A spot-elevation of 4,792 feet is listed here; a 4,780-foot contour extends east about 0.7 mile along the north county line, but the total flatness here suggests nothing is likely to be much higher than the 4,792 feet listed on the map (The 1:100000 map, which ticks off in meters, shows a single 1,460-meter line just barely crossing into Curry county, which further suggests the corner is the highpoint). With all the evidence the map gave me, I still got out and walked a little bit in the area. It's fenced and gated, and nothing to the east or south looked liked it warranted further inspection. I spent maybe 10 minutes here and there. This was the second of what would be five county highpoints done on this day; Luciano Mesa in nearby Quay County would be the third, next on my agenda.