On the east side of the Jemez Mountains, it descends even more steeply, on a series of hairpin turns offering spectacular views into Frijoles Canyon in Bandelier National Monument, to a junction with NM 501 (NM 502 in some references, but NM 501 is correct) leading east into the town of Los Alamos.
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Bandelier National Monument, with hiking and Nordic skiing trails to Frijoles Canyon, Cerro Grande (highest summit in the monument, at 10,199 feet), and the Tsankawi outlier reachable from trailheads at turnouts.
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It is significant as the main access route (in conjunction with New Mexico State Road 501 and New Mexico State Road 502) connecting the remote town of Los Alamos, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Bandelier National Monument to other, more major highways in New Mexico.
When Los Alamos Ranch School was taken over by the U.S. Government in 1943 to became the secret Los Alamos nuclear physics laboratory, virtually all of the traffic serving the town and laboratory travelled on New Mexico State Road 4 (now renumbered NM 502), crossing the river at Otowi.
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