New Mexico Atlas & Gazetteer

1 I have not changed my mind ...
I am the guy from Gallup that wrote earlier this atlas is near useless.

I have not changed my mind.

The Benchmark atlas, for the same price, is a much better atlas. Buy it instead.

2 REVISED EDITION IS EVEN BETTER
Jack Purcell is pretty thorough in his review. As for the nitpickers, if they really want to get names and numbers of backroads, they can contact the forest service and BLM, as well as the park service, who publishes maps of logging roads, and other limited use roadways. At 1:250,000, who could expect a name or number tag anyway of off-the-beaten trail access roads anyway?
What's nice about the new edition is De Lorme has added graphics to note relief, rather than topo lines found on previous editions (Perhaps due to competition from Benchmark Maps). I like the DeLorme Maps because they tend to be more detailed using a smaller resolution overall than other book maps (1:150,000 up to 1:250,000), and if one needs the detail offered in a 7.5 minute map, they have only to visit TopoZone.com to get really close, after locating the general area conditions on a DeLorme Map.
A great overall set to obtain, at the very least, get your state and every state that surrounds your own, and exploit it for true getaways and area studies!

3 I wish I didn't like these Delorme Atlas volumes so much
I have several of these of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. Duplicates of each... one in the house for planning and study, one in the truck. Occasionally I rotate them so they don't wear out too quickly.

If you spend a lot of time in the back country these maps are the best alternative, from my point of view. It's true the maps don't have labels on the back country cow trails another reviewer complained of. The fact is, neither do the roads. But it's often helpful when you come to the fork in a dirt two-track and they both wander off a few degrees off North, to be able to crack open the Delorme and discover the one on the left plays out just over that hill over there at a windmill. There's no excuse for needing labels these days. A compass and Delorme will allow you to locate yourself in most instances.

However, even the back woods purist ought to own a GPS. I've been wandering around the back woods longer than most readers of this have been alive. I rarely get lost, but I frequently don't know exactly where I am. Occasionally my old TrailBlazer saved me a lot of walking to get back to the truck. Once it saved my life in a snowstorm, I imagine.

For motor traveling you'll cover too much ground to allow the 7.5 minute maps to help much. You pass from one map to the next too quickly. When you are afoot a couple of them become useful. Meanwhile, I use Delorme as one of the ways to keep track of my wanderings. I recommend them wherever you are. And a GPS, as well.

4 AZ and NM Atlases
I bought both the AZ and NM atlases by Delorme after reading some good reviews of both here at the Amazon site.
Being somewhat of a map collector and a backroads enthusiast, both atlases are near useless.
My biggest beef is that although many backroads are shown on the atlases, the roads are not identified.
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5 A Must Have if Traveling in NM
I found the NM version of this book lacking. Yes it is detailed a lot better than previous attempts at making a atlas of NM. But most forest & county roads are not labeled. It also doesn't seem to be as complete, when comparing it to the CO version. On the other hand if you need a all in one map of NM, this is it. No one else comes close.