Mount Walter is the second highest named summit in the U.S. state of New Mexico. However it is not usually counted as an independent mountain since it has only about 53 feet (16 m) of topographic prominence, and is only 0.4 miles (0.6 km) north-northeast of Wheeler Peak, the highest peak in New Mexico. Both peaks lie in the Taos Mountains, a subrange of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, which is in turn a subrange of the Rocky Mountains.