[7][8] New Mexico State Road 14 passes through the northwestern portion of the Ortiz Mountains between the towns of Golden and Madrid.

They form part of the watershed boundary between the Rio Grande and the Pecos River.

The Ortiz Mountains are part of the larger Ortiz porphyry belt of Santa Fe County, and consist of late Eocene to early Oligocene intrusive igneous rocks and their sedimentary host rock.

Using the heap and leach method, they extracted approximately 250,000 ounces of gold before closing in 1986.

They did open a new adit into the Carache Canyon deposit, but stopped after 1719 feet due to regulatory issues, lawsuits and a declining gold price.