Just west of town, the Ramah Lake reservoir sits in a shallow valley backed by red-rock ridges. It is a local fishing spot — largemouth bass and bluegill are the main catches — and a pleasant place to walk in the early morning when the sandstone cliffs catch the first light. The lake itself is modest in size but the setting is characteristically New Mexican: dry juniper hills, enormous sky, and the silence that comes from being genuinely far from anywhere.
The area around the lake is part of the ancestral territory of the Ramah Navajo (officially the Ramah Navajo Chapter of the Navajo Nation), a distinct community from the main Navajo reservation. Their chapter house is in Ramah and the surrounding land includes important cultural sites.