Valles Caldera Rim

Link to Trip Report on New South Mountain Hike at Valles Caldera National Preserve

2009-09-01T22:23:00.002-06:00

Here's a link to a trip report on a recent hike done on the Valles Caldera National Preserve's new South Mountain hike.

Part II: Ghost Ranch - Deriving Caution From Another National Natural Landmark

2009-08-23T16:56:00.063-06:00

There are 12 National Natural Landmarks (NNL) in New Mexico (PDF download from National Park Service's NNL website). The one most developed, privately owned Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, NM, was chosen in 1976 as a NNL for its outstandingly well-preserved coelophysis fossils, a carnivorous dinosaur.

Its Ruth Hall Museum of Paleontology offers education and outreach about coelophysis to 2000-3000 school children each year. In addition, as "an education and retreat center of The Presbyterian Church (USA)", it offers many educational courses on diverse subjects and groups can schedule "a conference or workshop or family reunion."

Ghost Ranch has modest overnight facilities which include "bed and breakfast" style accommodations and camping. Other developments are the Florence Hawley Ellis Museum of Anthropology, a gift shop, a dining hall, a snack bar, a library, and the Piedra Lumbre Education and Visitor center.

Activities include hiking, horseback riding, tours of the ranch (there is a winter cattle grazing program), tours of Georgia O'Keeffe's Ghost Ranch home, a ropes course, and swimming.

The Director's Update May 2009 reveals that while doing well overall, they have made changes, due to both the economic downturn and the seasonal nature of visitation at Ghost Ranch. These included job cuts and downsizing of jobs. Other economic realities are that they are losing customers because they do not have enough single rooms to meet the demand. The Director says Ghost Ranch has years of deferred maintenance and facility improvements which need to be done.

Large groups grappling with their own budget restraints have canceled meetings at Ghost Ranch this year although others were found to fill the space. As of May 2009, Ghost Ranch was "...under budget in groups and meetings revenue." The Director says that Glorieta Baptist Conference Center has gone from operating year around to a summer-time only schedule. Ghost Ranch will try to attract bookings of groups that would have gone to Glorieta in the off-season.

Despite the reality of these economic times, the emphasis on development at Ghost Ranch has always been on service to people and community. Educational outreach is very much a part of this.The Director's Update mentions that school districts' budget cuts have meant less buses bringing school groups to visit their museums. But this has dissuaded Ghost Ranch not at all - museum staff now take their programs to the school children.

Ghost Ranch is a mere 21,000 acres compared to Valles Caldera National Preserve's (VCNP) 89,000 acres yet its smaller size does not make it immune from rebound effects of present economic crisis. Think how much harder it will be to make an 89,000 acre development financially self-sufficient in these trying economic times.

Alternatives D and E (VCNP PDF download of Overview Narrative) of 5 conceptual alternatives being presented in the Valles Caldera Trust's (VCT) Public Access and Use Plan (PAUP) are quite costly over a 10 year period in capital investment needed. Each require an investment of $143 million spread out over the next 10 years and each need $12 million in annual operating costs. Even alternative C would need $88 million in capital investments with annual operating costs of $10 million. Is this the right economic climate in which to begin a costly development centered around people traveling long distances to visit and stay overnight at the Preserve?

Please visit the VCNP website for information about the different ways you can submit comments on development at the Preserve. If you feel that the comment page they have set up is daunting and can't attend either of the two public workshops (VCNP PDF download of public workshops flyer), then please email or snail mail your comments to the VCT (comments@vallescaldera.gov or surface mail to Valles Caldera Trust, P.O. Box 359, Jemez Springs, NM 87025).

The VCNP's online comment page will be up at least through the end of September and maybe until mid-October, depending on public interest. After that, the 5 development alternatives will be narrowed and refined based on public comment received. Then, the revised alternatives will be analyzed on the VCNP website.

To be kept apprised of the planning process that will determine how the public will be able to access and use the Valles Caldera National Preserve in the future, please sign up for the Mailing Lists on the VCNP website.

If you absolutely have no time for commenting but want to see reasonable and fair access by the public of the Valles Caldera National Preserve, at least consider joining Caldera Action which will tirelessly advocate for better management and protection of the VCNP on your behalf. If you believe, as Caldera Action does, that the Valles Caldera National Preserve should be managed as a National Park Preserve, please let your congresspersons know of your concerns (Senate; House of Representatives).

Part I: Valles Caldera National Preserve - Do Not Overdevelop This National Natural Landmark

2009-08-21T22:07:00.073-06:00

Valle Grande of Valles Caldera National Preserve from Pajarito Mountain Ski Area

The Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) is a National Natural Landmark (NNL) designated in 1975 when it was then called the Baca Location No. 1. The NNL program is administered by the National Park Service (NPS).

Quoted information about the program from National Natural Landmarks Program brochure (PDF download from official NNL website):

The National Natural Landmarks (NNL) Program was established to encourage and support the voluntary conservation of sites that illustrate the nation’s geological and biological history, and to strengthen the public’s appreciation of America’s natural heritage. The program offers participants the opportunity to share information, solve problems cooperatively, and conserve important natural areas. Since 1962, the NNL Program has involved private, municipal, state, federal, and other landowners working together to conserve natural resources. Land acquisition by the federal government is not a goal of this program; NNLs are owned by a variety of land stewards, and participation in the program is voluntary.

National Natural Landmarks are selected for their outstanding condition, illustrative value, rarity, diversity, or value to science and education. NNLs include public land and private lands with a wide variety of uses.

Ongoing Partnerships are Key to Conservation Success:
The primary goals of the National Natural Landmarks (NNL) Program are to recognize landmark resources and support their conservation. To meet these goals, the NNL Program staff assists with grant applications, publishes an annual report on the status of landmarks, and may identify specialists to advise landmark owners on how to care for their sites. While providing funding for NNLs is not the norm, the program staff has been very successful in helping NNL owners obtain grants to fund conservation work and outreach projects. Recently funded and completed projects include interpretive walkways and exhibits, mapping of significant resources, videos, books, and eradication of non-native plant species. These projects help to conserve landmark resources as well as educate people about our country’s diverse natural history.

Quoted information from Pacific West Region, National Natural Landmarks Program brochure (PDF download from official NNL website):

Program Management:
The National Natural Landmarks Program does not place any land use restrictions on property as a direct result of federal designation. The NNL Program simply recognizes and encourages the voluntary, long-term commitment of public and private owners to protect an area’s outstanding values. In fact, designated sites do not even have to be open to the public. Conversely, national natural landmarks can be commercial ventures, if the integrity of the natural feature is maintained.

Concerning potential benefits to landowners, the National Park Service can provide technical assistance by advising owners on conservation practices, if so requested. In addition owners, who voluntarily agree to protect their landmark property, are eligible to receive a certificate and wooden plaque for appropriate indoor presentation or a bronze plaque for outdoor display at the site. In the case of federal ownership, agencies should consider the unique properties of natural landmarks in assessing the effects of their actions on the environment as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Depending on land ownership, national natural landmark designation can in fact enhance potential funding opportunities in some instances.

This quote is from the National Registry of Natural Landmarks June 2009 and briefly explains why the Valles Caldera was chosen as a NNL (PDF download from official NNL website):

The Valles Caldera is a large circular depression, 12 to 15 miles in diameter, with scalloped walls rising from a few hundred to more than 2,000 feet above the present floor. Located primarily within the Valles Caldera National Preserve, the site is one of the largest calderas in the world and is an excellent example of a caldera advanced in history but still retaining the essential structures. Designated: 1975. Ownership:
Federal.

The Valles Caldera is a relatively young, 1.2 million years old, well-preserved volcanic caldera which holds great geologic significance. It's diverse because in addition to the caldera, there is a resurgent dome,
ring fracture domes and geothermal activity (PDF download from Geo-Heat Center Bulletin, December 2002).

Federal agencies contemplating any development that will affect a NNL must be careful that the significant features of the property are not degraded. In the case of the Valles Caldera National Preserve, the significant features would be the geology of the Valles Caldera, including its resurgent dome, its ring fracture domes and geothermal features.

The National Natural Landmark designation carries no restrictions on what development can occur but the NNL status may be lost if the significant attributes of an NNL site are degraded. An NNL designation often makes a property more attractive to visitors which could translate into increased visitation at the Valles Caldera National Preserve. The federal government is available to help advise NNL property owners on how best to protect and preserve the property. Owners of NNLs can obtain Challenge Cost Share Funding to help protect and interpret its significant attributes - in this case, the uniquely intact geology of the Valles Caldera.

With the Valles Caldera Trust now actively engaging the public in a pre-scoping dialogue about different conceptual alternatives of access, activities, capacity, development, financing and values surrounding proposed development of the VCNP, maybe the question to be asked is if the Valles Caldera National Preserve was under different management, such as the NPS or the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), and financial self-sufficiency was not a requirement, would the new land managers approach development and public access and use of the land differently? What parts of these conceptual development alternatives would land managers who were not expected to make a buck discard and which would they keep? What would they consider more important - protecting and preserving the Valles Caldera, while allowing reasonable public access and use, or becoming financially self-sufficient?

In the case of the Valles Caldera, this spectacular geologic treasure of the Jemez Mountains, the primary consideration should not be the almighty dollar but how best to protect and preserve the Valles Caldera, which bewitches all who see it, and to both educate the public about the Valles Caldera and study it to
benefit future mankind (PDF download from official VCNP website regarding climate change study in Valles Caldera).

The focus of any development should befit the Valles Caldera's designation as a National Natural Landmark and should heavily emphasize science and education. Public Access and Use Planning (PAUP) (PDF download from official VCNP website of all conceptual alternatives for development) on the Preserve should occur only insofar as the natural landscape of the Valles Caldera is not degraded. Development that occurs should further appreciation, understanding and scientific study of the geological wonders and natural landscape that comprise the Valles Caldera.

Valles Caldera Trust Public Scoping Information Document

2009-08-17T20:56:00.023-06:00

The Valles Caldera Trust today posted on their website a link to the all in one file (PDF download from official
Valles Caldera National Preserve website) of the Public Scoping Information document for the Trust's "online collaboration" to involve the public in planning for public access and use of the Preserve.

You can simply download this one file which has everything you need to make your comments during this scoping period which is leading up to the issuance next year of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The 5 alternatives for development that are presented on the NEPA Master Page are not yet set in stone. It's during the scoping period that the alternatives will be refined based on public comment.

All this planning must be done by the Trust to make sure under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that any development for public access and use at the VCNP conforms to laws that protect the environment. The EIS will provide the legal framework for future development at the VCNP. Ever since the public's admittance to the VCNP in 2002, all public programs have been interim ones because permanent programs couldn't legally be put in place until an EIS is completed.

If you go to the NEPA Master page and register, you can read comments that folks like you have already left and you can leave your own.

South Mountain Hike Info Posted on Los Amigos de Valles Caldera Blog

2009-08-15T17:06:00.006-06:00

This afternoon, in checking blogs that I follow, I noticed that Greg Kendall posted information yesterday about the new Valles Caldera National Preserve's South Mountain hike on the Los Amigos de Valles Caldera blog. Here's the link to that post.

New VCNP Hike: South Mountain!

2009-08-15T08:44:00.008-06:00

Just yesterday, a friend emailed me that the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) has a new hike called South Mountain. It's offered every day that the VCNP is open. No reservation is required. It only costs $5 and doesn't include a van ride. It costs an additional $5 if you want a van drive along VC01 to the trailhead on VC02. Otherwise, you have a bit of a trek. I'll save the $5 and see the scenery along the way.

To get to the Valle Grande Staging Area (VGSA) where you'll park your vehicle, drive into the Valle Grande entrance off NM4. Go in 2 miles on a graded, gravel road to the VGSA and park your vehicle. Pay your money and get trekking!!

The routes up South Mountain are on old logging roads. Last year I got a peek at them when I helped out Sam Beard and the NM Cross Country Ski Club group do some trail maintenance in preparation for that season's cross country skiing. (Beard and his group are very strong skiers and routinely ski to the top of South Mountain!) I was the "lopper" - snipping off aspen saplings.

The VCNP write-up of this 8 mile or so hike says, "Once on South Mountain, hikers have a myriad of trail choices." It would be a good idea to print out the map the VCNP provides on their website (a PDF download), check the area on Google Earth and bring the Redondo Peak topo map (purchase here), compass and GPS (if you have one).

It's gratifying to have this hike appear on the VCNP calendar and most fortuitous that it occurred just after I had written this letter to the editor on Monday in response to an opinion piece by Ed Tinsley that had recently appeared in the Albuquerque Journal and Los Alamos Monitor. I have since rescinded my letter but reproduce it here for your amusement:

Give Me Freedom to Roam

Dear Editor:

Vice Chair Ed Tinsley of the Valles Caldera Trust recently presented an invitation to look at the "list of activities at http://www.vallescaldera.gov/comevisit/ and the daily calendar of attractions at
http://www.vallescaldera.gov/calendar/ViewCal.html" He intimated that people who complain of lack of public access really don't know what they are talking about because public access is plentiful at the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP).

I'm a hiker who took his challenge and looked on the Preserve website for unguided hikes of more than a few miles. For the remaining weeks in August, I saw 2 unguided hikes listed and for September, I saw none.

If the Valles Caldera National Preserve doesn't offer me what I want, they are in effect offering me no access. It's not like I'm able to buy an annual pass and make up my own hikes in the Preserve. No, I'm offered a menu of recreation opportunities but they are not the ones I want. I'll keep my money for the meantime!

This week, I walked up Pajarito Mountain Ski Area's jeep roads to the top (a free activity!) and I looked longingly over the VCNP boundary fence at all that land I'd love to hike and explore but am not allowed to. Hiking opportunities in the Preserve are of their time and choosing.

Sincerely,

Here is a link to Ed Tinsley's piece in the Albuquerque Journal. Let me know if it doesn't work. It's sometimes difficult to link to newspaper articles because the links may change as time passes. Click on Trial Premium Pass (FREE!), watch the brief commercial and then enter the Albuquerque Journal website to read Ed's opinion piece. (It also appeared in the Los Alamos Monitor but their website archive is extremely problematical to search and I wasn't able to find the article.)

This new hike addition has me excited and eager to give the VCNP my money!!

Website Launch: Valles Caldera Trust Public Access and Use Planning

2009-08-14T09:15:00.014-06:00

View into Valles Caldera National Preserve from Pajarito Mountain Ski Area

The notice below was emailed to me yesterday, August 13, 2009, via the Valles Caldera National Preserve's (VCNP) email lists that anyone can sign up for. The two public meetings will be on Monday, September 14, in Albuquerque, NM, 5:30-8:00pm, at the Hilton Garden Inn on 5320 San Antonio Dr. NE and Tuesday, September 15 in Santa Fe, NM, 5:30-8:oopm., Santa Fe Community College, 6401 S. Richards Ave.. For directions, either contact the Preserve or try any of the free online map services.

In the email notice below, the Trust makes it clear that you can comment in many ways - at the two public workshops, on the Preserve's NEPA Master Page, via snail mail or email. Please explore the links in the email below to decide which way you would like to comment.

The Trust says there is a way to download all the documents at once but I have not been able to find it. I ended up individually downloading a total of 25 files, including commenting guidelines, a glossary, movies, maps, an overview summary of the five alternatives and detailed explanation of each alternative. This seems excessive to expect the public to do this in order to become informed about the future direction of public access and use of the Preserve.

Regardless - this process is important to participate in because this is the official beginning of the National Environmental Policy Act process for the Trust's planning for public access and use of the Preserve. The comments you give now in this scoping process will determine what alternatives will be seriously considered in the official NEPA Environmental Impact Statement that will surely affect and alter the future of the Preserve and your access to it. In otherwords, the Environmental Impact Statement that the Trust will prepare is not created in a vacuum and your comments have huge potential to influence the future of your access to the Valles Caldera National Preserve.

If you don't comment, your voice regarding the various alternatives won't be heard. Hint - if you like horses a whole lot, you'll like two of the Alternatives, C and D, that provide for a focus on equestrian activities, including a developed equestrian center. (I wonder if they did a market study to determine how many equine enthusiasts there are in the surrounding areas before they devised this alternative? Perhaps there are a lot and this would be popular.) This is just one example of something you may want to provide your input on. There are others like Alternative D that includes "luxury lodging, restaurants, a bar, snack bars, a conference center, and an RV Park". The clever strategy used by the VCNP is that the maps of the various alternatives are filled with symbols denoting the location and type of the various developments planned. No narrative is provided on the map. You need to read the separate narrative to fully understand the full scope of development of each alternative.

Unless you take the trouble to become part of this process at some level, your voice WILL NOT BE HEARD:

Valles Caldera Trust
Public Access and Use Planning

Website Launch August 13, 2009

Dear Friends,

We are very excited to announce the Public Access and Use website launch and two upcoming public workshops (PDF download from official Valles Caldera National Preserve website)to support collaborative planning and decision making on the Valles Caldera National Preserve.

Planning for public access and use of the Preserve will be the first effort to engage stakeholders in an online collaboration. Be aware - this planning effort considers developing permanent facilities and infrastructure as well as access to and through the Preserve. It is an extremely important planning effort and quite complex. Reviewing the available information and providing substantive comment may require an hour or more.

This phase of our planning is considering alternative levels of development. Elements being considered include: Access, Capacity, Activities, Development, Financing, and Values. The website uses detailed narratives, maps, and videos to provide you with an understanding of these elements and the alternative levels of development for each.

After you review the narratives and maps, open the element tables. These pages present a graphical summary of each element as a reference for providing your comments and feedback. You will also be able to view and reply to the comments of others in our collaborative forum (you must register under the "Register" page before entering your comments in the forum).

This online collaboration is being supported by two public workshops (PDF download from official Valles Caldera National Preserve website). Your online and in person contributions will be used to formulate a range of alternatives for the development of infrastructure, facilities, and programs for public access and use of the Preserve.

If navigating websites or attending a workshop is not your thing - not to worry! You may download all the information as a single document and send your comments by email: comments@vallescaldera.gov, or surface mail: Valles Caldera Trust, P.O. Box 359, Jemez Springs, NM 87025.

Marie E. Rodriguez
Natural Resource Coordinator
Valles Caldera Trust
"An Experiment in Public Land Management"

Quick Links
Public Access and Use
Activities
Web Calendar
More About Us

Contact Information

1 866-382-5537
comments@vallescaldera.gov

Fraser Goff's Valles Caldera: A Geologic History

2009-05-30T10:49:00.112-06:00

I appreciate Fraser Goff's book, Valles Caldera: A Geologic History. The book gives solid, science-based information on the creation of the Valles Caldera 1.25 million years ago as a result of the awakening of the Jemez Volcanic Field, at the intersection of the Rio Grande Rift and the Jemez Lineament. He gives reliable geologic dates for the creation of the Valles Caldera and the eruption between the resurgent dome and caldera wall of subsequent moat rhyolites, such as Cerro del Medio. (Quite interestingly, Goff says that Cerro del Medio, which erupted 1.23 million years ago as the first of the ten moat rhyolite complexes, may have been created in six different eruptions.)

Fraser's book, published May 2009, wasn't out when I posted a photo narrative on selected trail segments of the Valles Caldera Rim in late 2007 (see VCR Blog Archive, November 29-December 3, 2007). For geological dates, I relied on a publication of the New Mexico Geological Society, Geology of the Jemez Region II, Fall Field Conference, Volume 58, 2007 and any abstracts of geologic research papers that I could find online.

While I enjoyed immensely the opportunity to explore the Valles Caldera Rim, the fact remains that I'm no geologist. Frankly, unless it's painfully obvious, like a rockslide, I struggle with trying to understand the story behind the rocks and landforms I see. It's as though it is hidden from me albeit in plain view. Also, the geology research papers that I read, well, it's debatable how much I understand because of the technical language used. That's why it's such a delight to read Fraser Goff's Valles Caldera: A Geologic History because he intelligibly interprets the geological underpinnings of the landscape of the Valles Caldera yet doesn't over-simplify or over-whelm.

The beautifully designed book has 114 pages and 52 figures, including many attractive color photos taken by Fraser Goff, sketch maps, charts, etc.. The figures are plentiful and do a great deal to increase understanding. The book is information dense yet concise. Goff includes the most up to date geologic information on the Valles Caldera, including some of the research done since 2000 when the United States government purchased Baca Location No. 1 and it became the Valles Caldera National Preserve. A brief, helpful glossary of geologic terms used and a bibliography for those who want to read more is included.

Recent research highlighted in the book includes a study of South Mountain lake deposits in the Valle Grande that may help climate change researchers to better understand climate variability in the Southwest. Dating of the 2004 core sample of the lake deposits revealed that South Mountain Lake persisted in the Valle Grande for over 200,000 years and this period spanned "...two complete glacial-interglacial cycles in the late Quaternary."

Goff says that new geologic mapping of the four USGS topographic quadrangles that cover the Valles Caldera - Bland, Redondo Peak, Valle San Antonio,Valle Toledo - is being done and will be completed in 2009 or 2010. This was done at the behest of the Valles Caldera Trust, in cooperation with federal and state agencies. In addition to being useful to the Trust for planning purposes, the new geological mapping has revealed more information about lake history in the Valles Caldera. Goff outlines the various caldera lakes that existed over four periods, beginning immediately after collapse of the Valles Caldera 1.25 million years ago and up to the most recent, 55,000 years ago, a short-lived lake caused by the El Cajete pumice eruption that blocked the East Fork of the Jemez.

I haven't even begun to do this book justice. It's worth reading and rereading. Chapter titles like The Next Valles Eruption and Where Does the Magma Come From and Is There More? give an idea of just how intriguing the book is.

Basically, Goff's book, written by a retired Los Alamos National Lab geologist who is currently an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of New Mexico, is an excellent source to find the most accurate, enlightening geologic information on the Valles Caldera, located in Valles Caldera National Preserve in northern New Mexico. To meet the man in person, sign up for a Valles Caldera National Preserve geology van tour, which Fraser gives, alongside his geologist wife, Cathy.

Under Acknowledgments, Goff thanks Robert Parmenter,Preserve Scientist, Dennis Trujillo, Preserve Manager, and "...other members of the Valles Caldera National Preserve for their support and funding on this project...". The official Valles Caldera National Preserve's website pages on Science and Education are strangely silent about all the really good research that takes place on the Preserve. Regardless, it's wonderful to have a book like Fraser Goff's Valles Caldera: A Geologic History that reveals some of the science that is taking place. The Valles Caldera Trust is to be commended for their role in helping Fraser Goff to bring this book to the public. It's especially valuable because it makes clear what a treasure we all have in the Valles Caldera National Preserve. Goff calls the Valles Caldera "...perhaps the world's best example of a resurgent caldera, a giant circular volcano with an uplifted central floor." Th geological wonder of the Valles Caldera National Preserve rises far above any importance it may have as a mere cow pasture and working ranch.

Valles Caldera West Rim: Virgin Mesa Above Battleship Rock

2009-05-18T21:03:00.059-06:00

This is FR (Forest Road) 607 (Santa Fe National Forest, Jemez Ranger District). It looks benignly flat where we parked to begin the hike but don't believe it. Dorothy's Honda CRV got quite a workout on a steeply downhill, wretchedly rutted, rocky stretch just before this. My gasps were no help; I suppose it was more helpful when I excitedly pointed out boulders that studded the road's side wall.

Dorothy's objective was to finish the Valles Caldera west rim by doing this last short section, all on national forest land, to an overlook of Battleship Rock from high up on Virgin Mesa. The views from the rim made me want to shout "Hallelujah!" I was grateful to get to tag along!

That tiny, insignificant peanut of a volcanic rock formation (looking like an alligator's snout) approximately 1,600' below the rim of Virgin Mesa is Battleship Rock, nearly 7,000' in elevation. Standing beneath it down below, it's a behemoth!

That's Cat Mesa in the background, the south rim of the Valles Caldera. The bulgy peak on the east horizon is Cerro del Piño, 9,030'. The East Fork of the Jemez River snakes around between Cat Mesa and Battleship Rock to conflue with San Antonio Creek, coming from La Cueva along NM 4, and becomes the Jemez River flowing in San Diego Canyon.

I took a lot of photos of Lord Redondo, 11,254', (OK, I added the "Lord" but believe me, it does lord it over the entire Jemez Mountains!) but this one turned out the nicest.

By the end of the day, the clouds over Redondo were looking frankly monsoonal and we even heard distant thunder once or twice but saw no lightning nor even a single rain drop.

NM4 is down below as well as San Antonio Creek; a big apron of Banco Bonito lava flows forms the cliffs you see. I've always studied topo maps of this section of the Valles Caldera Rim where the south rim adjoins the west rim but admit I didn't truly understand it until today. The Banco Bonito lava flows, the youngest volcanic activity of the Valles Caldera, occurred between 45-35 thousand years ago and constrain where things are placed. San Antonio Creek, NM4 and the East Fork of the Jemez River all are forced to go around the Banco Bonito flow. It seems a jumble to me on a topo map but so startlingly clear when you are on top of Virgin Mesa looking down on it all.

View from lunch of Virgin Mesa cliffs - what a hard life! This can give an idea of why there is a discontinuity in following the Valles Caldera Rim at the southwest corner. It's difficult to hike up or down Virgin Mesa's lofty 8,600' heights without ropes and a belayer.

If anyone knows of a trail or route from Cerro Colorado, 7,789', on the south rim of the Valles Caldera (we'll even settle for Battleship Rock picnic area, 6,760'), up to the continuation of the west rim on Virgin Mesa, please let the folks at the Valles Caldera Rim Trails website know.

If you would like to hike to a viewpoint above these particular cliffs, please check out this great book by Joan and Gary Salzman, Hiking Adventures in Northern New Mexico. A hike called Virgin Mesa Road takes you out to above these cliffs.

Looking south toward beautiful Jemez Springs where Valles Caldera National Preserve Headquarters is located. Cat Mesa is on the left side of San Diego Canyon and Virgin Mesa on the right. Sierra Nacimiento Mountains are on the western horizon, above Virgin Mesa.

Dorothy hiking on way back to FR 607 on green gladed path.

To get here, from NM 4 at La Cueva, take NM126 and turn left on FR 376. Go to FR 604 and turn left. Don't forget to stop, near where the road makes a hairpin turn to the right, to look down on the awesome tent rocks above La Cueva. Go to FR 607 and turn left. When you get to any ruts, stop and park if you are squeamish. Walk on FR 607 to waypoint 1 which is where we parked. The abandoned road (last photo above) is about a half mile or less beyond waypoint 1, on the left.

Basically, we went up that abandoned road to a stock tank and then worked our way uphill, gently southeast, into and out of Virgin Canyon (easy to do) and over to waypoints 2 and 3 for the almost-aerial views. (For true aerial views of the Valles Caldera see here and here.) There's a lot more to be seen than I've taken photos of. We could even see the north rim (a pinch), San Antonio Mountain, Cerro Pelado, Los Griegos Mountain, Las Conchas Peak and South Mountain.

For more information on specific trail segments of the Valles Caldera Rim, check here, the Valles Caldera Rim Trails website. That website and the VallesCaldera.com one will give you many ideas for how to explore the Valles Caldera Rim sections that are on national forest service land and are open to the public now with no reservations needed nor fees like those charged at the Valles Caldera National Preserve.

Valles Caldera National Preserve Volunteer Training on Saturday, May 2!

2009-04-28T21:36:00.033-06:00

This email below from Kimberly DeVall, Supervisory Recreation Specialist at the Valles Caldera National Preserve, announces Volunteer Training Workshops for volunteer opportunities at the Valles Caldera National Preserve. The first workshop took place last Saturday, April 25, 2009 and the next one is upcoming this Saturday, May 2. The workshops are held at the Valles Caldera Trust Headquarters in Jemez Springs:

2009 Volunteer Workshops Announced!

The Valles Caldera Trust would like to thank you for your interest in volunteering on the Valles Caldera National Preserve. In an effort to improve our volunteer program and coordination, we are offering volunteer orientation workshops. These workshops are designed to give you a brief overview of the Preserve, Trust policies and guidelines, safety, and volunteer opportunities. To become a volunteer on the Preserve, you will be required to attend one of these workshops each year.

We currently have two workshops available, with more to come based on interest. The workshops are scheduled for Saturday, April 25, 2009, and Saturday, May 2, 2009 (agenda) [PDF download from Valles Caldera National Preserve website]. Both workshops will be held at the Trust offices in Jemez Springs, NM, from 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM. Lunch is on your own so bring a lunch or enjoy one of the restaurants in Jemez Springs. Remember, to become a Preserve volunteer, you only need to attend one workshop. Previous volunteers are also required to attend. Each workshop will be limited to 70 participants and reservations are required. Please fill out the reservation form [PDF download from Valles Caldera National Preserve website] and return it by email or my mail at Valles Caldera Trust, P.O. Box 359, Jemez Springs, NM 87025.

We look forward to seeing you at the Preserve!

Kimberly DeVall
Supervisory Recreation Specialist

The reservation form gives a list of volunteer opportunities available on the Preserve. They include:

Van Tour Guides (a 45‐minute brief overview and history of the Preserve)
Highway 4 Pullout (a roving guide who helps bring visitors from the highway)
Van Drivers (transports hikers to trailheads and anglers to San Antonio)
Bonco Bonito (roving guides/support for equestrian and mountain bike trails)
Special Events (such as Run the Caldera, Cruise the Caldera, Star Gazing, etc.)
Visitor Center and Gift Shop (assist staff in providing information to visitors)
Guest Services (assist with facility rentals, group tour requests, etc.)
Ranching (fence work, monitoring, etc.)
Hunting (assist with hunter check in/out)
Science (assist with monitoring, collections, restoration, etc.)

Kimberly's email address is listed under Preserve Management in the Employee Directory. The Trust's phones are still having problems so an email to Kimberly is best to reserve a spot for the Saturday, May 2, Volunteer Training Workshop.

The Valles Caldera National Preserve website does not give driving directions to the Valles Caldera Trust Headquarters in Jemez Springs. The physical address is given as 18161 State Highway 4, Jemez Springs, NM. Their office space is rented from the Servants of the Paraclete and is directly across from the Jemez State Monument.

If you are unsure how to get there from your location, I would suggest getting directions from Google Maps using this search string: Valles Caldera Trust, Jemez Springs, New Mexico. In case you are coming from Albuquerque, here are posted directions to the Jemez State Monument which will get you right across the street from the Trust's Headquarters. There is plentiful parking. Jemez Springs is within walking distance for lunch. Last Saturday, someone recommended Deb's Deli as a good place to eat lunch.

Valles Caldera Trust Short Three Members

2009-04-26T16:21:00.011-06:00

According to the Valles Caldera Preservation Act of 2000, the Valles Caldera Trust (VCT) that manages the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) is supposed to have nine members .

Two of the VCT members are ex officio - the Superintendent of Bandelier National Monument and the Supervisor of the Santa Fe National Forest. They are fully voting members and are on the Trust by virtue of their position in the agencies which are neighbors to the VCNP.

The other seven of the members, who hold expertise in specific areas, are to be appointed by the President in consultation with the New Mexico congressional delegation. As of right now, only four of these seven presidential appointees are on the Trust. Those four were all appointed by former President Bush.

There are currently three vacancies in the areas of Forestry, Cultural and Natural History and Nonprofit Conservation Organization.

I am hoping that President Barack Obama, in consultation with New Mexico's congressonal delegation, will soon appoint the remaining three members to the Valles Caldera Trust (VCT) to fill these vacancies. It seems obvious to me that the Valles Caldera Trust can more effectively do its job if it has the full complement of members on board.

If you feel this is important, please contact your United States senators and representatives to ask that this be done soon. If you are unsure who your Representative or Senator is, you can look up their names on these websites:

U.S. Senate/ Senators Home

Write Your Representative - Contact your Congressperson in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Once you discover who represents you in New Mexico in Congress and the Senate, here are their names and links to their online contact forms. You will also find on their websites their office addresses and telephone numbers if you'd prefer to write or phone them:

Senator Jeff Bingaman/ Legislative Issues E-Mail Form

Senator Tom Udall

Congressman Ben R. Luján, Representing the 3rd District of New Mexico

Congressman Martin T. Heinrich, Representing the 1th District of New Mexico

Congressman Harry Teague , Representing the 2nd District of New Mexico

Valles Caldera National Preserve Volunteer Training

2009-04-25T20:37:00.049-06:00

Today I drove up into the Jemez Mountains to the Valles Caldera Trust (VCT) Headquarters, across from the Jemez State Monument. The Valles Caldera Trust rents office space, near Jemez Springs, from the Servants of the Paraclete. I attended a first ever Volunteer Training workshop for the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP).

The drive up was beautiful - going through astounding country. Up until past Battleship Rock, you're actually driving within the Valles Caldera on NM4. This website, VallesCaldera.com, illustrates well that a great deal of the Valles Caldera can be enjoyed without ever setting foot on the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) and can actually be accessed from within the Santa Fe National Forest.

As I turned into the parking lot at VCT Headquarters, I could see colorfully picturesque Cat Mesa, down San Diego Canyon, towering over the Jemez Valley. It's a different world in Jemez Springs - tall mesas with indescribably colorful rocks and the willow and cottonwood lined Jemez River making a mockery of the phrase "the arid Southwest".

The Valles Caldera National Preserve, as of last July, hired a new Supervisory Recreation Specialist, Kimberly DeVall. Kimberly said that she is number five in as many years to hold this position. Before coming to the Preserve, she worked the last four and a half years on the other side of the fence, for the Santa Fe National Forest. She seems earnest and enthused and really wants to do right by the volunteers. A majority of attendees expressed a feeling that volunteers hadn't been appreciated in the past and were even ignored. I can attest that before Kimberly came on board, my inquiries about volunteer positions went unanswered. I've heard the same tale from others. I honestly think that Kimberly will change all that. For more information on Kimberly, read the Fall 2008 La Ventana en los Valles, Welcome to New Staff article, (page 2), which can be downloaded here as a pdf file.

Kimberly said that they had had snow the past two weekends and how lovely the weather was today. It truly was a sparkling day in the Jemez Mountains. No one else from Preserve Administration or Management or the VCT attended the meeting. Meeting facilitators included Kimberly's recreation assistants, Emily Blumenthal and Joyce McHugh and interpretative assistant, Stacy Urich. Rob Dixon, Preserve Outdoor Research Planner, had planned to attend but took ill.

People came from Santa Fe, Pojoaque, Española, Los Alamos, Vallecitos de los Indios, the Jemez Valley, Rio Rancho and Albuquerque.

The meeting started out pretty lively and Kimberly was really a good sport and very patient with us. One man asked why the locked gate into the Valle Grande Staging Area and why not allow year around admission. A woman who volunteers with the equestrian program at Banco Bonito made a compelling case for equestrian volunteers having been unappreciated in the past. Overall, the audience and Kimberly agreed that in the past, many volunteers have been lost because of deplorable lack of communication. Kimberly suggested ways to remedy that such as setting up a page on the official VCNP website to communicate with volunteers. She's even considering Twittering!

Volunteers will need to attend one of these orientation sessions each year. Those who attended this year can take a refresher course next year that will focus on some continuing education aspect of volunteerism at the Preserve.

To get on the email list to be notified of upcoming volunteer workshops, please contact Kimberly. To contact Kimberly DeVall to let her know of your interest in volunteering for the VCNP, please use this Employee Directory which gives her email address. Kimberly feels that volunteers are important and says she plans to treat us that way.

Also, the VCNP website has a helpful new feature this year whereby you can sign up for a mailing list, specifying your interests. To do this, go to the VCNP home page and click on Mailing Lists in the upper left hand corner.

Just Another Valles Caldera National Preserve Conundrum

2009-03-11T16:33:00.031-06:00

On page 44 of the Valles Caldera Trust 2008 Report to Congress, the Trust admits that:

Public use and access to the Preserve for its recreational, scenic, cultural, scientific, educational, and spiritual values is likely the cornerstone for financial self sufficiency.

But on page 41 of the report, the Trust really wishes that there weren't quite so many people at the public meetings who express such strong desire for the very condition the Trust admits will allow the Preserve pay for itself:

Expand attendance and participation at public meetings of the Board of Trustees
Objective
Ensure participation by a broad spectrum of stakeholders

Metric
Number and affiliation of attendees

Narrative
Public board meetings are attended by a contingent of groups and individuals with an avid
interest and passion for the management of the Preserve especially for access and recreation.
The Board would like broader representation from stakeholders with interests in the
environment, science, ranching, education, and other areas of interest and management
concern.

So, on the one hand, the Valles Caldera Trust admits that allowing the public to use and access the Preserve is the key to financial self sustainability; on the other hand, they'd truly prefer not to hear so much about the public's deep desire to finally be allowed more freedom to use and access the Preserve.

Valles Caldera Trust Needs More Congressional Oversight

2009-03-04T21:06:00.098-07:00

Dear Representative Ben Lujan and Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall:

I'm very frustrated with the current management system at the Valles Caldera National Preserve. It has been almost 9 years since the Preserve was created in July 2000 and the hiking public is still no closer to having freedom of movement within the Preserve. There are only a limited number of fee hikes that are available in the interior of the Preserve, for which hikers must make a reservation, be driven in a Preserve van to the trailhead and given a time by which they must end their hike.

Due to deteriorating snow conditions, winter recreation ended March 1 this year, making it only a two months long season because the Preserve closed its gates the whole month of December. Checking the VCNP calendar, no recreation programs are scheduled until May 21. In the meantime, hikers in Los Alamos are enjoying hikes in the Santa Fe National Forest and Bandelier National Monument but we must remain locked out of the Preserve until the end of May. Why can't I buy an annual pass to hike on the Preserve? If they are afraid that private vehicles will do damage to their roads, why not let us hike in from the edges of the Preserve, displaying proof of an annual pass in our parked vehicles like they do in Bandelier?

The Valles Caldera Trust (VCT) in their Annual Report to Congress 2008 claim that they have already fulfilled various requirements of the Valles Caldera Preservation Act 2000. The Trust asserts that the requirement for a comprehensive management plan mandated in Section 108 (d) of the Preservation Act was fulfilled with the July 2003 publication of the Trust's NEPA procedures. NEPA procedures provide a legal framework within which to develop plans but publishing NEPA procedures and calling it a comprehensive management plan seems a semantic ploy so the Trust can say it has fulfilled that requirement of the Preservation Act. The proof that the Trust doesn't truly have a comprehensive plan is that since 2002, the public has only been allowed on the Preserve on an interim basis. We don't yet have a permanent right to enjoy recreation on the Preserve. The Trust promises planning this year for public use and access but, truthfully, I don't hold out hope that much will change to fulfill the public's desire for more freedom to explore this beautiful land. If the Valles Caldera National Preserve were under the forest service or the national park service, we would by now have more freedom to access it.

Also in their 2008 annual report to Congress, they state that they have fulfilled the requirement found in Section 111 (b) of the Preservation Act to submit a plan for annual decreasing congressional appropriations toward the goal of achieving financial self-sufficiency. But the so-called plan that they refer to, found in Appendix B of the 2005 Framework and Strategic Guidance for Comprehensive Management, does not even mention specific dollar amounts! That they could assert this in an annual report to Congress and no one has called them to account for it shows that they have not had careful oversight.

This year the final GAO Report on progress at the Preserve will be released. In the November 2005 interim report, Valles Caldera Trust Has Made Some Progress, but Needs to Do More to Meet Statutory Goals, the GAO stipulated that the Trust should take steps to come into compliance with the Government Corporation Control Act which mandates annual independent financial audits of government corporations. It is only this year that the Trust says it will finally release independent financial audits for 2004-2007 and 2008. The Trust's finances are another area in need of more congressional oversight to ensure that they have not been reckless with the public's money.

Recently, the New Mexico Legislature passed Senate Memorial 32 which calls upon New Mexico's congressional delegation to hold hearings to reconsider the present management system at the Valles Caldera National Preserve. I hope that you will soon do that. The present system isn't working.

Respectfully and sincerely.

Valles Caldera National Preserve and the Presidio: Not Much in Common

2009-03-01T21:35:00.001-07:00

The Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) is often compared to the Presidio because both are managed by trusts created by Congress. Other than that, there are few other similarities. The VCNP has an expansive 89,000 acres while the Presidio consists of a puny 1,491. The VCNP has a few decaying buildings which badly need infusions of cash to make them ready for visitors while the Presidio has 768 buildings they inherited from the National Park Service as well as plentiful parking and roads. The VCNP is land-rich but, other than the stunning scenery, amenity poor while the Presidio burgeons with money-making assets on its strikingly green piece of oceanfront property in highly urbanized San Francisco.

The management of the Presidio is unique because the Presidio Trust in July 1998 took over management of Area B, which is the non-coastal interior 80% of the Presidio while the NPS retained management over the shoreline of the Presidio, the remaining 20% which is called Area A.

The May 2002 Presidio Trust Management Plan divides Area B into different planning districts, each with a slightly different focus such as educational, cultural and lodging. Crissy Field, for instance, is pure recreational open space while the Main Post, "Heart of the Presidio", functions as an area to orient visitors.

In the VCNP's upcoming planning for public use and access this year, would it be possible for the Valles Caldera National Preserve to also establish different use areas within the Preserve? Some of these areas could be purely for making money - perhaps a resort destination in an area of the caldera that is easily accessible from the main highway, NM4. Other more isolated areas of the Preserve could be reserved for uses that are more primitive like dispersed camping.

Perhaps the VCNP could even have different areas of the Preserve under different management like in the Presidio. What if, for instance, the Santa Fe National Forest managed the perimeter of the caldera, including the Valles Caldera rim, for primitive, wilderness uses while the Valles Caldera Trust (VCT) managed the interior, more developed areas of the Valles Caldera for intensive tourist use?

Looking at the Presidio's website, it appears that open space recreation is free. Since they have other lucrative venues that make beaucoup bucks - rent and lease of residences (1,147 housing units) and office space - they can afford not to charge.

The problem for the Preserve is that there is no ready source of the annual, large amounts of cash that are required to attain financial self sufficiency without first making a huge investment to build a destination resort with a visitor center and parking and all the amenities that top-paying tourists require. One worry is that such a development would spoil and endanger the natural beauty and natural resources of the Preserve. In the 2009 session of the New Mexico Legislature, Senate Memorial 32 has been introduced by Tim Eichenberg. This calls upon the New Mexico congressional delegation to hold hearings to reconsider the present management of the Valles Caldera National Preserve because it is not allowing people fair access to the Preserve; because of this, recreation and economic opportunities are being lost to New Mexicans.

One characteristic that both the VCNP and the Presidio have in common is no lack of dissatisfaction among the public. There is controversy over decisions of the Presidio Trust just as much as there is dissatisfaction about how things are going at the Preserve. The Los Alamos Monitor is running a two part article by Dave Menicucci, Albuquerque based freelance writer, on frustrations of New Mexicans with the current regime in place at the Preserve. Part one, cleverly titled Frustrations with Valles Caldera erupt into public debate, appeared on Sunday, March 1, 2009. Part two is slated to appear on Tuesday, March 3, 2009. It makes very interesting reading for those of us who have waited so long (if impatiently!) for untrammeled access to the Valles Caldera National Preserve!

I hope in the future that the situation at the Valles Caldera National Preserve changes and allows wider and fairer access to people but, for the meantime, I truly envy the people of San Francisco because the Presidio welcomes people to use its open spaces and the Presidio Trust is well on its way to achieving independence from federal appropriations by 2013.

Valles Caldera National Preserve Needs More Action, Less Excuses!

2009-02-10T17:14:00.001-07:00

On Sunday, February 1, 2009, a Los Alamos Monitor article, "Caldera reboots under new management", (written by Roger Snodgrass), gave highlights from a group interview with Stephen Henry, Valles Caldera Trust (VCT) board member; Gary Bratcher, the Trust's new executive director (PDF download); Dennis Trujillo, the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) Manager and Bob Parmenter, VCNP Scientist.

It's interesting when Bratcher is asked to comment about the perception of the public that the VCNP is behind schedule in providing more public access to the Preserve and in becoming financially self-sustaining.

Bratcher, the fourth official director of the Valles Caldera National Preserve in northern New Mexico, attempts to explain away what he calls "misinformation" about how long the trust has to meet its goal of financial self-sufficiency. He cites a section of the Valles Caldera Preservation Act of 2000 (Public Law 106-248) (Preservation Act), the enabling legislation (PDF download) that created the Preserve. This section, Section 110, Termination of Trust, mandates that in 2014 if the Trust has

...met the goals and objectives of the comprehensive management program under section 108(d), but has not become financially self-sustaining...

the Trust can ask Congress to continue further appropriations for another four years and delay the final decision on whether or not to terminate the Trust until 2018.

This is perfectly true but if you bother to read Section 108(d) Management Program, of the Preservation Act, it says that two years after the Trust assumed management of the Preserve, a comprehensive management program which included "public use and access for recreation" was to have been completed. The Trust took over from the forest service in August 2002. However, it was not until 2007 that public workshops (PDF download) were held to gather feedback to begin the process of comprehensive planning for "public use and access for recreation".

After this hopeful beginning, that process was largely forgotten by the Trust in 2008. It did resurface briefly at a Trust meeting in December 2008. Supposedly, the plan is for more public workshops to be held in 2009 and to have the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) process for public use and access completed by late 2010 or mid 2011. That's a long time to wait when it was supposed to have been completed in 2004. This is now seven years after the Trust first assumed management of the Preserve and it is now only 5 years away from the 2014 deadline that Bratcher refers to.

What Bratcher terms "misinformation" is not that at all. The perception of people that time is running out for the Trust is based on the reality of the situation that at this late in the game, there is still no real plan in place to allow more fair and open access for all people to explore and enjoy the Preserve. The public sees it as an exclusive "pay to play" enclave.

Bratcher and the Trust need to realize that an important deadline has already passed - to win the support and goodwill of all of us who once were optimistic that one day we'd be allowed to enjoy the Valles Caldera National Preserve! Now, most of us are talking about how maybe our grandkids will get to enjoy it! We feel that the only way we will ever get onto the Preserve is if the Trust finally goes away. Telling us we are misinformed won't get our support.

Also in the article, Bob Parmenter points out that originally when Congress mandated financial self-sufficiency, it was believed that grazing, timbering and hunting could be used to attain this. Parmenter eliminates each one from consideration - the Preserve is already overgrazed from all the cattle run on it when it was privately owned, the timber is over-cut from intensive logging in years past and the hunting is tightly controlled by the New Mexico Game and Fish Department. (An aside: In the early days, the Trust had hoped to make loads of money auctioning off elk licenses to the highest bidders but ordinary hunters protested and a lottery system was put in place to provide fairer access to local hunters. This year, HB 11 has been introduced in the House of Representatives of the New Mexico Legislature to bring back a modified system to auction off a limited number of deluxe hunting packages.)

Waiting until after they have given up hopes for lucrative economic returns from grazing, timbering and hunting before they seriously consider allowing larger numbers of us unwashed masses onto the Preserve shows how highly they value recreation. Do you think perhaps it's our wallets they value?

Now, as the Preserve finally acknowledges that there's gold in our pockets, they are powerless to do much about it because they know that their facilities and infrastructure are not adequate to receive visitors on a larger scale than that of their present interim recreation program. Their roads and accommodations are sub-par and they don't even have a visitor center let alone adequate visitor parking. In their Annual Report to Congress 2008, they spell out that they will need $15 to $50 million dollars over the next ten years to upgrade their aging, inadequate buildings and infrastructure in order to make money off recreation.

In closing, I almost discounted one telling remark by Bratcher which belies his agribusiness background. He offers the excuse that the Preserve can only operate five or six months out of the year and implies that it's unfair to hold it to the same standards as other places that have "twelve months of Augusts".

Mr. Bratcher, the Preserve can produce productive income year around if you allow more access to the people. In the winter, it could be a snow lover's paradise on more than just Saturdays and Sundays, January to March. Also, don't shut the place down to hikers at the end of September. Leaf peepers and elk watchers would love to be allowed on the Preserve in October. As it is now, only hunters may use the Preserve in those months. Preserve scientist Bob Parmenter has dismissed hunting as a money-maker so why should one group of recreationists have exclusive use of the whole Preserve for two months? Furthermore, why in the world do you lock your gate and completely shut down the month of December? Hikers would love to pay to use the Preserve until it becomes snowbound and then a myriad of winter activities like snow camping and snow shelter building, in addition to cross country skiing and snowshoeing, could take place. It's purely an agribusiness oriented point of view to assume the Preserve can only make money during the growing season. When it comes to recreation, it's a year-around proposition. It works for Bandelier National Monument and Santa Fe National Forest so why wouldn't it work for the Valles Caldera National Preserve?

The Preserve is a stunning landscape and it's sad that this geologic wonderland, a young caldera, the circular shape of which is still clearly visible, needs to become a mere working drone, a means to an end, a cash cow and will not be allowed to exist just for visitors to enjoy, scientists to study and students to learn!

This page on the VCNP website has Reference Documents and Annual Reports which can be downloaded in PDF format. You'll find the annual reports to Congress here, the Valles Caldera Preservation Act, the Trust's NEPA procedures and documents created by the Trust to guide its actions.

This page has Stewardship Action Proposals. The Stewardship Actions are proposed by the Trust to manage the VCNP. The Trust seeks public comment on the proposals.

This is the home page of the VCNP website. Check here for news of upcoming public meetings. Click on Mailing Lists in the upper left hand corner to have the VCNP put your name on an email list to receive news about the VCNP, including notices of public meetings and stewardship actions.

All PDF downloads are from the VCNP website.

Neat, New Feature on VCNP Website!

2009-02-06T15:47:00.007-07:00

The Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) now has a new feature on the home page of their website where you can subscribe to receive email updates on topics of your choice.

On the VCNP home page, look for the clickable Mailing Lists link in the upper left hand corner.

When you click on it, you are taken to a page that prompts you to enter your email address. Once you click Submit, you can create your profile and indicate which topics you'd like to receive updates on.

Here are the topics:

· News & Newsletters
· Volunteer Opportunities
· Recreation Events
· Special Events
· Fishing
· Hunting
· Contracting with Valles Caldera Trust
· Project Planning & Decisions
· Cultural Resources

I welcome this new addition to the VCNP website as it will help more people to stay informed about news of the Valles Caldera National Preserve. The more informed people are, the more they will care about what happens to it.

Brief Presentation on 2009 Public Use and Access Planning Process at Valles Caldera Trust Meeting

2008-12-12T21:36:00.023-07:00

On Friday, December 12, 2008, the Los Alamos Monitor ran an article by Roger Snodgrass that gave a brief synopsis of the December 11, 2008 meeting of the Valles Caldera Trust (VCT), in Santa Fe, New Mexico: Bratcher Named Preserve Director.

There was a short presentation at the meeting by Martin Chavez and Tom Christensen. I believe they are part of the Enterprise Technical Services team that the VCT will use in the development of alternatives for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) planning process. They will be working with the public in Spring 2009 to gather input on the what uses and access the public envisions for the Preserve.

Martin was with the forest service for 33 years and Tom is a conservation and recreation planner. Tom says he helped plan Land Between the Lakes in Tennessee and that it's similar in plan to the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP).

The planners will solicit public comment and then have a "testing process" in April-May 2009 for different public use and access ideas. It's unclear to me if that "testing process" only includes indoor sessions in public workshops, using storyboards to plot out alternative ideas or if it will also include actual testing of alternatives on the ground in the Preserve. It may be a combination.

The planners welcome "packages of options" for public use and access as prepared by the public.

I don't have contact information for Tom Christensen but Martin can be contacted at:

Martin Chavez
VCT Public Access/Use Coordinator
(505) 428-7737
mdchavez_6@msn.com
Valles Caldera Trust
18161 State Highway 4
PO Box 359
Jemez Springs, NM 87025

Valles Caldera Trust Public Meeting This Thursday

2008-12-08T12:13:00.012-07:00

Below is a copy of the agenda for the meeting of the Valles Caldera Trust. It can also be downloaded from the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) website, on this page, under December 11 Board Meeting Agenda. There will be a discussion of the planning process for public access and use of the VCNP. There will be a chance for public comment at the end of the meeting.

VALLES CALDERA TRUST
PUBLIC MEETING

December 11, 2008

Marriott Courtyard

3347 Cerrillos Road

Santa Fe, NM 87507

AGENDA

1:00 PM Welcome and Introductions

Approval of Agenda
Approval of September 11, 2008 Public and Working Meeting Minutes

1:15 Board Business

Authorize Future Executive Sessions
Announce Schedule of Public Meetings - 2009

1:30 Business Operations

GAO Report
FY08 Budget Update
Audit Report Update

2:00 Preserve Programs

Preserve Manager’s/Scientist’s Report

Stewardship Action Planning Updates

Public Access and Use
Forage Use & Sustained Yield
Redondo Stewardship Project

Recreation and Resource Management Updates

2008 Grazing Program Overview & 2009 Recommendations
2008 Elk Hunt Overview
2008 Recreation Program Overview

Preserve Scientist’s report
Coyote Study Report

3:15 General Public Comments

4:00 PM Adjourn

Valles Caldera National Preserve Rant

2008-12-05T19:30:00.086-07:00

Have any of you checked out the Valles Caldera Rim Trails (VCRT) website? It's long been a dream of hikers in New Mexico to have a trail around the rim of the Valles Caldera in northern New Mexico. When the Baca Location became public land in 2000 and transformed into the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP), the heartbeat of hikers quickened at the thought that soon this dream would become a reality. Well, nine years later, we are no closer but the dream lives on.

The VCRT website is chock-full of information on the Valles Caldera rim. There are lots of photos that reveal areas of the rim on Valles Caldera National Preserve land that are closed to the public (even though it's been publicly owned since 2000). I hope you will look at the Valles Caldera Rim Trails website and fall in love with the Valles Caldera. I hope that then you will be asking, like a visitor from Montana did, "Why have they locked up the public land? Why isn't this place open?"

New Mexicans have in our own backyard 89,000 acres of land that tax-payers are being kept from fully enjoying in the futile hope that this public land will one day become financially self-sufficient. It's not only a loss to New Mexicans but also to the many people from out of state and all over the world who stop on the parking aprons along NM-4 and wistfully imagine what it would be like to explore the vast spaces of the Valles Caldera.

It's true that in a manner of speaking, the land is open to hiking but only where they allow you to go and only on their time schedule. Within the Preserve, there are a grand total of three reservation-only paid hikes for which you are dropped off somewhere and essentially told the party line of where you must hike and when you must be done hiking. It seems unreasonable to not only limit hiking venues within the Preserve but on the Valles Caldera rim too.

You can't walk in from the Valles Caldera rim without prior arrangements. You can't walk along the portions of the caldera rim owned by the Valles Caldera National Preserve. Yet, every year, hunters, after a lecture asking them not to pot-hunt on the Preserve, are set free to roam within their assigned hunting unit for a couple of days. As a hiker, I'd love to be able to do that but 9 years later, the VCNP remains largely a citadel fortress, closely protected from hikers except those who are thrilled with re-doing the three reservation-only, fee trails (and you'd better not stray away from circling around on those old logging roads because that's not part of the program!)

Recently, a proposal was made by a seasoned, Los Alamos hiker to the management at the Valles Caldera National Preserve to allow hiking on their east Valles Caldera rim, between Cerro Grande and Pajarito Mountain. Called the Cerro Grande to Pajarito Mountain Trail Proposal, it can be downloaded as a pdf file from the Valles Caldera Rim Trails (VCRT) website. It's short, only 6 pages, and loaded with photos of what you'd see if you could legally walk there. It's an eminently reasonable proposal.

Unfortunately, the proposal has been dismissed by the VCNP because of fear that poachers are entering the the Preserve from the east Valles Caldera rim, specifically, from Camp May (property of Pajarito Mountain Ski Area) and that to allow a break in the fence for hikers will only encourage more poaching. (Incidentally, in November, when Pajarito Mountain starts receiving snowfall, the road to Camp May is blocked to vehicular traffic until the snows are gone in the springtime. Must be those dastardly two-legged skiing and snowshoeing bunnies dragging those trophy elk out!)

I feel the refusal to consider this proposal is a chimera designed to keep the VCNP the exclusive preserve of those who are willing to pay for lovely but expensive interpretive programs that are useless to most hikers. What hikers want to do is hike, not go on a chaperoned van ride and attend a lecture while standing in place.

Anyway, what proof does the VCNP have that poaching of elk rather than innocent poaching of outdoor recreation is occurring from Camp May? As the proposal points out, the Santa Fe National Forest already has a public trail up Valle Canyon, Trail 289. How do they know that the poachers are not coming up Valle Canyon and hopping over their inviolate barbed wire boundary fence?

I believe that poaching occurs on the VCNP but why should their inability to effectively handle that problem be used as an excuse to ban hiking along their Valles Caldera rim? This seems unfair to hikers. The message seems to be that it's more important to protect their lucrative trade in trophy elk than to allow ordinary hikers to enjoy the Valles Caldera rim on foot.

Has it not occurred to the VCNP that if people were allowed to regularly traverse year-around between Pajarito Mountain and Cerro Grande, there would be more eyes to look for poachers and even act as a deterrent? One hiker pointed out that from when the elk hunts ended in November, until December 26, when the winter recreation program officially begins, the VCNP is closed to the public. ( Is this how they plan to become financially self sufficient, just close down for a month and not allow anyone to get any use out of the place?) Maybe if people were actually allowed to use the place, poachers wouldn't have such an easy job of it. If I were a poacher, I'd go in right now because it's empty of visitors who could provide more eyes to spot a poacher.

Believe me, it can get really ridiculous in the Valles Caldera National Preserve. Cows are allowed to trample about in the summer (bathing themselves in the streams to the horror of fisher-people) while volunteers this summer in Alamo Canyon, who only planned to camp on disturbed well pads overnight to implement a project designed to help restore the wetlands in Alamo Bog, almost weren't allowed to because the VCNP nearly had a cow at the wildly imaginative thought of unbathed volunteers despoiling the already highly disturbed soil of Alamo Canyon. This is, after all, where Pat Dunigan had invited intensive commercial exploration for geothermal energy in the past.

Then there's the whole issue of how selling lift tickets in the summer to those who want to make the trip over to Cerro Grande would help the Pajarito Mountain Ski Area. The ski hill already provides a wonderful program in the summer whereby hikers and bicyclists can take the lift to the top and then go down the jeep roads and volunteer-built bicycle trails on Pajarito Mountain. Why not let them expand this program and allow people to travel up the ski lifts and then walk over to Cerro Grande? This would allow the local ski hill in Los Alamos to make a little money. Why shouldn't the VCNP be nice to its neighbors?

Isn't it time to throw the hiking community another bone by allowing hiking from Pajarito Mountain to Cerro Grande? This would help to make the upcoming glacially slow National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) planning process more bearable (more on that here).

I'm thrilled and grateful for the two unscheduled hikes that are available - the free Coyote Call and Valle Grande trails but it's so tremendously unfair to not allow people to make the trip over from Pajarito Mountain to Cerro Grande (or, for that matter, up Valle Canyon to either mountain). What would it hurt? People have been doing it for years anyway!

Why not, under the aegis of adaptive management and the umbrella of achieving financial self-sufficiency, start a whole new paradigm of interim hiking programs during the interminable NEPA process that allow hiking along the rim of the Valles Caldera or even hiking in from the rim? The VCNP's hiking program is badly in need of some variety in their offerings.

The VCNP remains for the meantime a sacred cow that tantalizes with its life-giving flesh but never allows anyone to sit down at the table to eat. Obviously, the desires of ordinary hikers like me who want a more spontaneous experience hiking along the Valles Caldera rim or even into the caldera from the rim will never be considered. The DOE land outside of White Rock is not treated like a sacred cow. Hiker's can freely walk there (and probably poachers hang out there too). There are loads of cultural sites and artifacts; yet, I'm trusted to walk that land.

I know there's a lot going on in the world that's a loads more important than gaining more hiking access to the Valles Caldera National Preserve, but maybe, just maybe, some of you could write or email your congressperson about what you would like to see happen regarding public access and use in the Valles Caldera National Preserve.

Another idea is to join an advocacy group like Caldera Action which will lobby on your behalf for sensible public access to the VCNP.

You may already be a member of a hiking group that's appalled at the present limited, reservation-only system of hiking access to the Preserve. What do your members feel about this situation? What do you feel about the present limited hiking access to the Valles Caldera National Preserve?

Give Your Feedback on Public Access and Use in the Valles Caldera National Preserve

2008-12-05T19:02:00.064-07:00

Below is a copy of a November 24, 2008 email that Lucia Turner, Acting Executive Director, Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP), sent to update the public about the Preserve's continuation of the planning for "public access and use" that was begun on December 6, 2006 (here, under Visitor Use and Access, December 6, 2006) and will continue in 2009. This planning is a part of the VCNP's upcoming National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process that is required by federal law. The letter gives a brief outline of the planning process and a rough idea of how long it will take. It tells the public how they may participate and includes exact details on how to submit comments. It is an informative letter that is respectfully cognizant of how long the public has waited for this NEPA process to begin.

A planning team, Enterprise Technical Services (ETS), that "will include engineers and landscape architects who have expertise in designing multi-use facilities on public lands and incorporating innovative techniques in planning" has been commissioned by the VCNP Board of Trustees. ETS is part of the United States Forest Service. This team will use the information gathered during public meetings in 2007 (here, under Public Use and Access Meetings Report) as well as a business plan being developed by ENTRIX Inc. and additional public feedback to "draft a reasonable set of alternatives" for the Preserve's NEPA process (here, under National Environmental Policy Act Procedures, July 17, 2003).

The "planning and decision-making process" required by NEPA is expected to extend into 2010-2011 before any action on public access and use is taken. Not long after that, by 2015, the VCNP is constrained to prove that they have the potential to become financially self-sufficient. The Preserve is required to have actually attained financial self-sufficiency by 2020 or become a land unit of the forest service. (Some of us who have observed the tumult of the VCNP's constant turnover of staff, administration and board members believe that financial self sufficiency will only happen with divine intervention.)

What worries me is that in the interest of forcing the VCNP to prove that they can become financially self-sufficient, the true desires and needs of the public to re-create on this public land will be lost in a welter of ill-advised money-making schemes that won't allow fair access to the Preserve except for those who have the big bucks (and I don't mean elk!) required for admission.

Do we have to wait until this tortured "Experiment in Public Land Management" mercifully ends to be allowed to enjoy this beautiful, tax-payer purchased land? Do we have to wait until then to hear no more excuses like that allowing people to hike along the rim of the Valles Caldera will only encourage poaching and trespass (more on that here)? Are you tired of this long process of waiting to be allowed to explore the land that your tax dollars purchased? Is it unreasonable to have expected greater access nine years after the VCNP became public land? How many of you feel this way? What can we do together to change this experiment in public land mis-management?

Will you please give your comments to the VCNP on what you would like to see happen in relation to your use and access of this great public land.

VCNP Letter to the Public

Valles Caldera Trust
18161 State Highway 4
P.O. Box 359
Jemez Springs, NM 87025

T 505-661-3333
F 575-829-4614
www.vallescaldera.gov
info@vallescaldera.gov

Date: November 24, 2008
File Code: VCVCPN

Friends of the Valles Caldera,

In December of 2006, the Board of Trustees authorized Trust staff to “collect data and information (Phase 1) to support planning (Phase 2, NEPA) to develop programs, facilities and infrastructure for public access and use of the Valles Caldera National Preserve” This Proposed Stewardship Action (PSA) can be viewed on our website, www.vallescaldera.gov; a link is available on our homepage, From our Home Page, select “Get Involved” from the menu on the left; then select “Stewardship”, scroll down and select “Proposals”, on the left; select "Visitor Use and Access" ‐ the document is titled Proposed Steward Action, dated December 6, 2006.

One of the elements identified in the PSA was to, “Complete a socio-economic and market analyses at various scales to look at current and future trends as well as potential markets and niches.” Towards this end, we have recently acquired a draft Business Plan from ENTRIX Inc. That effort started in March of 2008. While we refer to it as a plan, the purpose of the ENTRIX document is to suggest alternatives under which financial self-sufficiency is possible. We do not consider it as a plan in the sense that any decisions have been made, or any actions have been proposed, on its contents. It is to be used as a reference to continuing the information gathering efforts as described in the PSA. In the outreach and subsequent award of the contract to be fulfilled by ENTRIX Inc., the Trust emphasized the consideration of alternatives that could lead to financially self-sufficient management of the Preserve. As suggested in the State of the Preserve, public use of and access to the Preserve is likely the key to achieving this benchmark established by Congress.

The Trust has put together a planning team, Enterprise Technical Services (ETS), who is using the information collected through the public workshop series held in 2007, the business planning document being completed by ENTRIX Inc., as well as additional analysis and public feedback, to draft a reasonable set of alternatives in support of Phase 2 (NEPA), of public use and access planning as described in the PSA. The team being developed will include engineers and landscape architects who have expertise in designing multi-use facilities on public lands and incorporating innovative techniques in planning. In the upcoming year, this team will be focused on completing phase one and will be calling on our interested public for their participation and feedback.

Phase 2 will represent the planning and decision-making process as defined in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This process begins with a Notice of Intent (NOI), published in the Federal Register that identifies the proposed action, the purpose and need for action as well as any alternatives being considered. It is our intent that when the Trust publishes this NOI, our stakeholders will clearly see the values and goals put forward in the public work shop series and their feedback provided to our planning team this year, represented in the alternatives put forward.

We expect to publish the NOI late in 2009. Planning and decision making under NEPA is expected to take from 12-18 months following the publication of the NOI. NEPA mandates a period for public comment following the NOI and another period of review and comment for a draft Environmental Impact Statement. Opportunities to comment through meetings or workshops will also be provided during this process. Of course the public is welcome to comment at anytime by:

• selecting the “feedback” option on our website,

• sending an email to comments@vallescaldera.gov,

• sending surface mail to P.O. Box 359, Jemez Springs, NM 87025 to the attention of “Public Use and Access Planning” or,

• providing verbal comments any of our public meetings of the Board of Trustees, held three or more times throughout the year.

As previously stated, the PSA authorized in December of 2006 can be viewed on our website, www.vallescaldera.gov. In addition, all the posters and materials presented at the 2007 public workshop series are also available. From our home page, select “Get Involved” from the menu on the left; then select “Public Meetings”, “Planning Meetings”, and “Virtual Meetings”; the complete link is: http://www.vallescaldera.gov/get_involved/public/public_plan_vm.aspx .

We recognize that the length of time required for planning is frustrating. The development of programs and facilities for use and access represents an important array of decisions regarding the management of the Preserve. The time and resources required for planning typically reflect the importance and complexity of the decision to be made. We appreciate your patience as well as your participation and are looking forward to your continued participation as we begin this phase of planning.

Sincerely,
/s/ Lucia Turner
Lucia Turner
Acting Executive Director

VALLES CALDERA NATIONAL PRESERVE
“An Experiment in Public Land Management”

Valles Caldera South Rim: Las Conchas Peak

2008-07-15T19:55:00.054-06:00

A group of hikers from Los Alamos, NM went up Las Conchas Peak on July 7, 2008.

View west from Las Conchas Peak, looking at Los Griegos Mountain. Both Las Conchas Peak and Los Griegos Mountain are on the south rim of the Valles Caldera but are not part of the
Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP). Instead, both are in Santa Fe National Forest which, unlike the VCNP, is freely open to the public. Las Conchas Peak and Los Griegos were formed before the Valles Caldera. The view here goes all the way to the cliffs above San Diego Canyon and beyond to the
Nacimiento Mountains on the horizon.

Lovely, elusive (elusive because the VCNP won't let anyone hike to the top) Redondo Peak, the resurgent dome of the Valles Caldera, can be seen from Las Conchas but the view is compromised by trees.

Redondo again with El Cajete being the slice of meadow that you see on the shelf below Redondo (above the larger meadow). El Cajete is part of the most recent volcanic eruptions in the southwest moat of the Valles Caldera. El Cajete erupted approximately 60,000 years ago. El Cajete can be reached from the Banco Bonito staging area of the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) where horseback riding and mountain biking are held.

Hiker taking photo of view of the Valle Grande. On the far horizon is the east rim of the Valles Caldera. In the right middleground, the tall mountain mass is Rabbit Ridge which towers above NM4 and the Valle Grande. Rabbit Ridge is on the south rim of the Valles Caldera. It can be hiked from the VCNP's free
Coyote Call Hike and has splendid views into the caldera.

I have to admit that I talked up the Las Conchas Peak hike as though the views were very grand but I had forgotten how blocked by bushes and trees the views are to the northern Valles Caldera. The views from Rabbit Ridge to the northern caldera are better.

Having just now bad-mouthed the views of the Valles Caldera from Las Conchas Peak, you will see in the next photos that the views to the southeast are not blocked.

In the immediate foreground, the bushy, brushy, rock pile is Las Conchas Peak itself and on the left skyline is Peralta Ridge, home of the Electronic Site with its impressive array of antennas and signs warning you'll be microwaved if you venture too close.

The day was overcast with heavy clouds hanging around but it didn't rain a drop. Bearhead Ridge runs to the southeast with Aspen Peak being the tallest peak at the end of the ridge. Peralta Canyon runs along the base of Bearhead Ridge. In my youth, I walked with a group all the way down Peralta Canyon to the tent rocks that are now the Kasha Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument near Cochiti, NM.

Hikers love maps! The hiker on the left is searching in her pack to pull out yet another map! This photo shows the bushes and trees that block the northern view from Las Conchas.

We parked right before the locked gate to the Electronics Site on Peralta Road, FR280. The Peralta-Paliza Trail runs west from near the locked gate. We got on the trail and wound around to the north of Las Conchas Peak. One branch of the Peralta-Paliza Trail goes around the west side of Las Conchas Peak but we took a left turn-off that took us around the east side of the peak. There's no real trail up Las Conchas; just various disturbed areas where it's obvious that people or animals have blundered up. I had us go up a brushy, cliffy place from the south and, while it was a nice challenge to wrestle with the bushes and scale the rock faces, it really wasn't the best way up.

This map shows Aspen Peak at the end of Bearhead Ridge (lower right side of map). The Electronic Site on Peralta Ridge is called Radio Facility on this map.

Fortunately, an experienced mountaineer suggested a much better way to go down! We easily traversed down the northeast shoulder of Las Conchas Peak, going through the woods and coming out on the Peralta-Paliza Trail. Rather than following the trail back around the way we came up, we simply oozed down a a meadowy slope to Peralta Road. We walked the short distance back to the locked gate and parked car.

This was only my second time on Las Conchas Peak and I hope to go back some day.

New Paradigm for Hiker Visitation in Valles Caldera National Preserve?

2008-06-25T21:05:00.137-06:00

Valle Canyon-Valle Grande Hike

Is a new paradigm being established for hiker visitation in the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP)? One that would involve no gas-hogging van rides and no private vehicles being driven into the Preserve? One that goes off the beaten path of the usual line-up of structured, time-driven, reservation only VCNP hikes? One that would include a knowledgeable guide provided by the VCNP and would result in visitors who are ecstatically delighted by the whole experience while being very respectful of the land?

On Wednesday, June 25, 2008, I was privileged to go along on a trip, arranged by a local Los Alamos-Santa Fe hiking group, that went up the Valle Canyon Trail (appears on all maps as Cañon de Valle but the common usage is Valle Canyon), crossed the VCNP boundary fence, and walked down historic Cañon de Valle Road into the Valle Grande. A group of 21 hikers was allowed to traverse the hillsides above the grasslands of Valle Grande and trek up out of the caldera on the VCNP's free Valle Grande Trail. All this was done without fear of getting caught and having to pay steep federal trespassing fines.

This wonderful hike in an awe-inspiring place happened because a patient, persistent group of hikers who love the outdoors persevered in arranging for people to hike in as legal paying customers on VCNP land. The VCNP charged $12 a head and provided a guide who clearly loves the place and was a joy to hike with.

At lunch in Valle Pass, our guide gave an excellent primer on the volcanic events that led to the formation of the Valles Caldera and Redondo, its resurgent dome. As we listened, we could actually look across Valle Pass at Redondo and Redondito sailing high above the caldera.

After lunch, we hiked down from Valle Pass into the caldera on the steep, historic Cañon de Valle Road. It was also how sheepherder's brought their flocks to the caldera for a summer of grazing on the vast grasslands. The road ended when we got to the edge of the caldera and no real trail continued beyond. We were easily able to navigate among the hummocks of grass while gaping at the stunning views of the Valles Caldera Rim and the intracaldera wonders like the resurgent dome, Redondo, and one of the caldera's ring fracture domes, Cerro del Medio.

Later, when we rested in a shady grove overlooking the Valle Grande, our guide told us a story about the wild and woolly days in the Valles Caldera when in 1851 a scheme was hatched to make loads of money. The plan was to take mules down the Cañon de Valle Road into the Valle Grande to pack hay back to the Army at Fort Marcy; instead the mules ate all the hay and the men were attacked by Navajos. Our trip ended on a happier note with no injuries!

Late afternoon, when the hike ended and the car shuttle brought me back to my car, I found myself enthusiastically repeating "WOW, WOW, WOW!" on the drive home. What a wonderful day in the Preserve it was!! I hope this new paradigm spreads to other hiking groups who would like to do something different and more unstructured than the present line-up of tightly scheduled hikes and tours offered by the VCNP (in the 89,ooo acre VCNP, only 2 hikes are free and spontaneous, both located on the caldera's south side). I am grateful to all who arranged the trip, to all the drivers who shuttled us back to the Valle Canyon trailhead, and to our VCNP guide who helped us to greater understanding of what we saw along the way.

Some say the grasslands of the Preserve are hardly pristine - very true. It is a land that people have been trying to make financially self sufficient for well over a hundred years - grazing, lumbering, using the caldera's thermal power, and running a resort spa are among schemes tried. Hopes were high and dreams were grandiose as people thought they could make their millions on this land. Most ended up making their money by selling it at a higher price to the next owner waiting in line. Dunigan did manage to extract profits from the Baca Location No. 1 by running thousands of cattle on the land.

Fortunately for us, the caldera is a big place and its grasslands still shimmer an intoxicating green and gold in the late afternoon sunlight which makes it looks pristine even if it isn't. To me, as a hiker, the real value of the VCNP lies in the beauty and spaciousness of the land. When I stand on a hillside above the grasslands of the Valle Grande and study the play of shadow and light that delineates finely the tiniest hillock and the hugest mountain, an uncontrollably primal yearning is enlivened within me - something that feels like a deep connection to this land. I would advise all hikers who want more access to the VCNP to ask and continue to ask. The Valle Canyon-Valle Grande hike that the group did was such a soul-satisfying experience.

Here are a map of our trip and some photos:

I didn't start taking waypoints until I reached the old bridge (photo below). We began hiking at the Valle Canyon trailhead parking, located on NM501, 2.5 miles past NM501's intersection with Diamond Drive, per Craig Martin's Los Alamos Trails hiking book. The hike from the Valle Canyon trailhead to the Valle Grande trailhead was 8 miles long.

The hiking group assembled for a snack in Valle Canyon.

Old bridge in Valle Canyon. It's waypoint 1 on the map above.

Hiker at lunch in Valle Pass with Cerro Grande to the south - probably at waypoint 2 on the map above. In Valle Pass, we were enclosed on the north by the lower slopes of Pajarito Mountain, 10,441', and on the south by Cerro Grande, 10,199', both of which are located on the Valles Caldera East Rim.

Our view of Redondo, 11,254', (the "little" knob is Redondito, 10,898') from our lunch spot.

Through the opening in the trees, there is a back way up Cerro Grande Peak that follows a hand-cut fireline used to fight the 2000 Cerro Grande Fire. A well-worn trail follows the handline down from the top of Cerro Grande into Valle Pass but it's not legally open to the public so you would be liable for big trespassing fines if caught. This situation effectively throttles any attempts to legally hike that portion of the Valles Caldera Rim.

Hiker walking toward Cañon de Valle Road. The hillside to the north is the lower slope of Pajarito Mountain.

As we walked in Valle Pass, one hiker commented wistfully that he had forgotten how beautiful it was. Many hikers long to be able to hike in Valle Pass again. I wish that the VCNP would consider allowing hikes up Valle Canyon to the pass on a regular basis. It's sad that beautiful Valle Canyon remains a dead end hike 8 years after the Valles Caldera became public land!

We all gathered around after lunch to listen to our VCNP guide tell us the story of how the caldera and resurgent dome formed and of the boom and bust days of the great lake in the Jemez Mountains which formed in present-day Valle Grande after the Valles Caldera collapsed 1.2 millions years ago. The lake, every bit as flamboyant as its parent caldera, eventually catastrophically burst, forming San Diego Canyon.

Hiker on historic Cañon de Valle Road that crosses from Valle Pass, between Cerro Grande Peak and Pajarito Mountain, into the Valles Caldera National Preserve. The road is steep but in surprisingly good condition with no deadfall that I remember.

I felt like a pilgrim entering the promised land when I first caught sight of the caldera through the trees! Ahead is Cerro del Medio, 9848', one of several ring fracture domes that formed after the caldera collapsed.

Another view of Cerro Grande but from within Valles Caldera National Preserve. You can't really appreciate what a massive mountain Cerro Grande is until you walk around it. It looks to me like a huge, gently rounded flying saucer hovering above the Valle Grande.

This is looking west across the grasslands of the Valle Grande. Going around from east to west (left to right), is the slope, just to the southwest of Cerro Grande, of an unnamed mountain, 9743'; Scooter Peak, 9701'; Rabbit Ridge with Rabbit Mountain, 9938'; Las Conchas Peak, 9934'; Los Griegos Mountain, 10,117'; and South Mountain, 9795'. All but South Mountain are on the Valles Caldera South Rim (see Trail Segment 7 also).

Across the Valle Grande is an arm of Cerro del Medio (middle foreground, beyond the trees) which encloses the Rincon de los Soldados, a tiny meadow nestled into a corner of the Valle Grande. The VCNP offers a guided hike called Rincon de los Soldados which searches for traces of an old army fort from the mid-1800's and includes a jaunt on the Cañon de Valle Road into Valle Canyon. Beyond Cerro del Medio is the emblematically distinctive profile of Redondo, the caldera's majestic resurgent dome,and Redondito. South Mountain, another ring fracture dome that burbled up from the leftover magma of the collapsed Valles Caldera, is on the far left horizon.

Warm blooded primates hurrying to huddle in the shade!

This is from the Valle Grande looking back at the tree-speckled south meadow on Pajarito Mountain. Valle Pass is the low area between Pajarito Mountain and the heavily treed northern slope of Cerro Grande (left middle foreground).

Hiking sticks came in handy for going around the grass hummocks. Looking west over the Valle Grande, you really get the feel that you are looking out over the lake it once was. The East Fork of the Jemez River is meandering through the grasslands to the far western Valle Grande (photo's horizon) where it will continue on to San Diego Canyon.

This is looking toward the northeast corner of the rim of the Valles Caldera. In the middle foreground, an arm of Cerro del Medio meets an arm from the Sierra de los Valles to form a low ridge. The small peak in the shadows is the eastern and smaller of the two Cerros de los Posos which overlook the tiny Valle de los Posos. The large baldspot on the far right is Cerro Rubio, 10,449'. Shell Mountain is the mountain complex to the left of Cerro Rubio. After that (or maybe even before that!), my knowledge of what the peaks are becomes murky. If anyone can set me straight, I would be most grateful!

To provide context, here's a far off view of the zoomed in view above. The head of the East Fork of the Jemez begins on the low, treed pass between Valle Grande (foreground) and Valle de los Posos beneath Cerro Rubio.

The tiny hikers help to understand the huge scale of the Valle Grande. The two mountains here are Scooter Peak (middle foreground) and Rabbit Ridge (background) which can both be hiked from the VCNP's free Coyote Call Trail or from Bandelier National Monument's Alamo Boundary Trail. The Jemez Mountain's paved access road, NM4, part of the Jemez Mountain Trail National Scenic Byway (also called the Jemez Mountain Trail) runs along the base of these peaks. Drivers regularly stop to gasp and gape at the stupendous views of the Valle Grande from pullouts all along NM4.

A seemingly infinitely long grazing fence runs along the Valle Grande. To a hiker, the time it has taken for more independent access into the caldera seems infinitely long as well. Perhaps there is still hope that the Valles Caldera National Preserve Trustees, charged with making the VCNP "financially self sustaining" by 2015, may one day allow for more varied and spontaneous hiking in the Preserve and on the Valles Caldera Rim owned by the Valles Caldera National Preserve. The Valle Canyon-Valle Grande hiking trip was a very positive movement toward that long-awaited goal.

Valles Caldera National Preserve Public Appreciation Day Snowshoe

2008-01-27T16:44:00.001-07:00

Public Appreciation Day (Free!!) January 21, 2008

Pretty Little Cerro la Jara, 8745'

This dome is near the check in station for the winter recreation program at the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP). This is the dome's east side and was very easy to snowshoe up. The winter recreation program runs through March and is held every Saturday and Sunday. See the VCNP's calendar for exact dates and times. One more free public appreciation day will be held this winter on February 18, 2008, 9am to 4pm, President's Day.

Two Snowshoers Breaking Trail

But you don't have to break trail if you don't want to because the VCNP has a groomer which prepares a large swath of trails around the western Valle Grande. That's an arm of Redondo in the background.

Valle Grande Staging Area Check-In and Parking

I drove in on a 2 mile long plowed road from NM-4, in the Jemez Mountains. I managed in a Suburu. The road was OK in the morning but by afternoon, despite the never-ceasing plowing by the Preserve staff, drifts were forming over the road. I had to keep strictly to the tracks of the vehicles ahead and not get stuck in the deeper snow in the middle of the road or at the sides. Even NM-4 was drifting over. If you drive a passenger car, prepare for possibly getting stuck on the way out. The Preserve recommends four wheel drive or chains and I believe them because even an all wheel drive Suburu was marginal on the way out of the Preserve. In fact, a passenger car that was several vehicles ahead of me got stuck on the side of the road on the very last hill before NM-4. People pushed her out of the snow bank and she was good to go. The Valle Grande is a great, big snow bowl!!

The mountain with the tree-speckled meadow is Pajarito Mountain where Pajarito Mountain Ski Area is located in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Orange Lichened Boulder Pile on Cerro la Jara

When I walked into the Preserve during the August 2006 Drive and Discover Day (I breathed in a lot of car exhaust fumes!!), I wanted to walk up Cerro la Jara then but the public was only allowed a limited distance up the east side to see an archeological site. The Preserve has decided it's OK to go up Cerro la Jara in the winter because all the obsidian artifacts are protected under several feet of snow but it's off limits during the summer because the area would have to be NEPA-ed before it could be opened up to rabid, obsidian-heisting (NOT!!) hikers!! Yet, hunters in the fall are allowed more free rein within their hunting unit in the Preserve after attending a mandatory orientation where they are instructed not to pick up artifacts!!

Looking Down from Cerro la Jara toward the Valle Grande Staging Area

Pajarito Mountain (left) and Cerro Grande (right), on the Valles Caldera east rim, are in the far background.

Rabbit Ridge from Cerro la Jara

The thin, gray line is the Valles Caldera National Preserve's entrance road. Across NM-4, Rabbit Mountain is at the right (west) end of Rabbit Ridge and can be accessed from the VCNP's free Coyote Call Hike. The Sierra Club's Northern New Mexico Group mentions the hike up Rabbit Ridge, as part of the Coyote Call hike, in the 6th edition of their book, Day Hikes in the Santa Fe Area.

Cross Country Skiers Glide Beneath South Mountain (Left) and Redondo Peak (Right)

The distances in the Valle Grande are vast. The day I was there, though, an extremely strong party of cross country skiers made the all day trip to the top of the almost 10,000' South Mountain!! I believe they were led by Sam Beard, who wrote Ski Touring in Northern New Mexico, which includes helpful information on cross country ski trails in the Jemez Mountains.

Rocky Southwestern Slope of Cerro la Jara

Redondito is in the background. I was truly surprised at how steep little Cerro la Jara is. It's easily accessible from the east, near the Valle Grande Staging Area, but going down on the southwest side was steeper than I had imagined. From the pullouts along NM-4, set against the backdrop of massive Redondo and in the huge space of the Valle Grande, it looks like such a tame, rounded, little dome!!

Two Views of West Side of Cerro la Jara

Redondito Erupting

Not wishing to start any rumors, I hasten to affirm that it's only wafting clouds!!

Valles Caldera East Rim: Cerro Grande Snowshoe

2008-01-26T21:37:00.003-07:00

Official Cerro Grande Route

Cerro Grande Trailhead - Bandelier National Monument

The snow was dirty brown near the trailhead--maybe due to snow plowing that happened during the preceding week's big January 2008 snowstorm in the Jemez Mountains.

Start of the Official Cerro Grande Route

This is the flat part. Note the cross country ski trail beside the snowshoe trail. A lot of people had enjoyed the trail before I got out on it which worked out well. Even though the trail was well-broken the temperatures had stayed so cold that it wasn't at all icy.

Looking Southwest from Cerro Grande Route at Scooter Peak

If you want to travel on the true Valles Caldera East Rim, Scooter Peak is the part between Cerro Grande and Rabbit Ridge. The northwest quadrant of Scooter is owned by the Valle Caldera National Preserve (VCNP). The rest of Scooter is part of Bandelier National Monument (BNM) . There are no formal trails up Scooter but there is possible route that has been scouted by Valles Caldera Rim Trails volunteers. It involves following game trails to the top from Scooter's eastern side, off Dome Road-FR-289. Once on top, there's an old logging road which goes down to Scooter Pass, between Scooter Peak and Rabbit Ridge, and intersects the Coyote Call Trail.

I've also read of Scooter being called Sawyer Dome--maybe because it's at the head of Sawyer Mesa (where Obsidian Ridge is located). Here's a good map to buy that includes the Cerro Grande, Alamo Boundary, Scooter Peak area.

Elk Exclosure East of Cerro Grande Route

Elk exclosures have become endemic to the Jemez Mountains near Los Alamos--especially after the Cerro Grande Fire.

Cerro Grande Route Marked by Yellow Diamonds

The route is beginning to go uphill here.

Looking Down into the Frijoles Canyon Drainage at NM-4

NM-4, coming from Los Alamos and White Rock, New Mexico, crosses Frijoles Canyon at a sharp curve and then heads uphill to the parking for the official Cerro Grande Route and the Upper Frijoles Trails. After your visit to Cerro Grande, if you are driving toward Los Alamos, look up briefly to catch a view of the summit of Cerro Grande as NM-4 goes downhill to dip into Frijoles Canyon

Along the Route

Looking up at the eastern arm of Cerro Grande. The actual summit of Cerro Grande is not tall as mountains go--10,200'-- but it's a truly massive mountain complex in terms of acreage and viewsheds because it has a number of connected ridges like this one. It's not pictured here but, in this section the route does something very cruel!! : ) It goes down into a side drainage of Frijoles Canyon and then you have to work mightily to regain the lost elevation up to the high pass. This also means that on the way back home, you have some uphill when you had bargained for all downhill!!

Aspen Trees That Have Been Chewed on by Elk

Almost to the high pass. I first learned about the high pass from a wonderfully informative, unpublished October 2004 report, Feasibility of a Perimeter Trail in the Cerro Unit, by Dorothy Hoard. The high pass is between the summit of Cerro Grande and an unnamed summit to its south.

Elk Tracks West of Route at the High Pass

The tracks came from the conifer grove to the west, crossed the route and then went into an aspen grove to the east.

Area of the High Pass

If you've made it this far, might as well go to the summit!! My technique is to walk until my legs or my lungs protest; rest and repeat!! Better to do this hike in cool weather!!

Still Going Up

Views Open of Redondo in the Valle Grande

You're in Bandelier National Monument looking into the Valles Caldera National Preserve.

Looking Down on the High Pass and the Valle Grande

In the background, encircling the Valle Grande (left to right), are Rabbit Mountain, Las Conchas, Los Griegos, the Nacimientos (far distant western horizon), South Mountain, Cerro la Jara (postage-stamp dome in front of South Mountain), and Redondo Peak.

Eastern Arm of Cerro Grande

The heavily forested, unofficial Cerro Grande Route goes up the eastern ridge of Cerro Grande and breaks out into the open where you see the skinny patch of snow. It follows this eastern arm around to the summit of Cerro Grande.

All the Way to the Sandias in Albuquerque

On the blue horizon is Sandia Peak in the Sandia Mountains, east of Albuquerque, NM. In the middle foreground in Bandelier National Monument are the Frijoles Canyon drainage (right) and St. Peter's Dome (left), in the San Miguel Mountains. The long, straight strip of snow above Frijoles Canyon is Sawyer Mesa, where Obsidian Ridge is located.

False Summit Builds False Hope

Real Summit Dead Ahead

Literally Dead Ahead!!

The rock pile, turkey feather, and elk skull mark the Cerro Grande summit. You have made it!!

From Cerro Grande Summit: Full View of Redondo in Valle Grande

With South Mountain and Cerro la Jara lurking on the left.

From Cerro Grande Summit: View to Northwest into Valles Caldera National Preserve

Lot of stuff here!! Basically, in the immediate foreground, you're looking down at a part of the Valle Grande with Cerro del Medio rising behind. On the right middle, poking up above Cerro del Medio is Cerros del Abrigo. They are rhyolite domes that rose up around the edge of the original volcano that collapsed and formed the caldera approximately 1.2 million years ago.

Even after the volcano had collapsed, it wasn't dead. There was still movement of molten lava underground. A ring fracture zone had naturally formed around the edge of the caldera when the caldera's collapse cracked the overlying rock. This ring fracture zone formed a passageway for the rhyolitic lava to squeeze up to the surface and form domes like Cerro del Medio and Cerros del Abrigo. A series of these rhyolite ring fracture domes arose in a circular pattern around Redondo, the resurgent dome of the caldera.

One could perhaps explain a resurgent dome this way: After the caldera collapsed, it wasn't really inactive. There was enough movement of magma underground, underneath the caldera floor, that the magma was able to very slowly uplift the overlying rock, mostly the very same Bandelier Tuff that had previously spewed out of the Valles Caldera, thus forming massive Redondo. Some other ring fracture domes, to the west (left), are viewed in this photo including Cerro San Luis, Cerro Seco, and San Antonio Mountain. The Nacimientos in northwestern New Mexico are on the furthest horizon.

From Cerro Grande Summit: Toward North and Northeast Valles Caldera Rim

On the far left horizon, the snowy patch is Garita Ridge-Hunter's Point on the north rim of the Valles Caldera. The snowy patch in the middle is Cerro Toledo which is on the northeast rim of the Valles Caldera.

This Is the Way to Start Down the Unofficial Cerro Grande Route

A car shuttle can be arranged allowing hikers to go up the longer, gentler unofficial Cerro Grande Route and down the shorter, steeper official one. Hiking Adventures in Northern New Mexico, by Joan and Gary Salzman, gives directions for this hike. There is limited parking for the unofficial Cerro Grande Route along both sides of NM-4, about 1 mile east of the parking for the official Cerro Grande Route.

Somewhere on the higher reaches of the unofficial route is the location where a BNM prescribed fire was ignited in May 2000. It tragically got out of control, starting the Cerro Grande Fire. Oddly enough, when you're on the high reaches of Cerro Grande, it looks undamaged but strong winds, the norm during springtime in the Jemez Mountains, caused the fire to spot and eventually become a raging fire which destroyed and damaged hundreds of homes in nearby Los Alamos, New Mexico.

In Autumn 2007, Bandelier conducted a successful prescribed burn in a different part of the Upper Frijoles area, south of Cerro Grande and above Frijoles Canyon. It went off without a hitch except for some heavy smoke a few nights in the town of Los Alamos.

On the distant horizon are the Sangre de Cristos, the southern extension of the Rocky Mountains. Santa Fe Baldy is to the far left. Ski Santa Fe is to the right of Santa Fe Baldy.

Valles Caldera South Rim: Rabbit Ridge Snowshoe

2008-01-16T21:03:00.001-07:00

Rabbit Ridge Snowshoe in
Valles Caldera National Preserve
and

Bandelier National Monument

Coyote Call Trailhead in Valles Caldera National Preserve

Rabbit Ridge Road is accessed from the Coyote Call Trail, a free trail in the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP), which is open during daylight hours year around.

Looking Across NM-4 into the Valle Grande from Coyote Call Trail

Redondo is the resurgent dome of the Valles Caldera. Redondito is the small protuberance on the right side of Redondo's ridgeline. Left of Redondo is South Mountain, a rhyolite dome of the Valles Caldera. The tiny forested dome to the right of South Mountain is Cerro la Jara, another rhyolite dome. Both South Mountain and Cerro la Jara formed around the actual outer margin of the collapsed Valles Caldera. Cerro la Jara is where the Valles Caldera National Preserve Valle Grande Staging Area is located.

Rabbit Mountain

Rabbit Mountain, with the large, snowy rockfield or felsenmeer, is located on the western end of Rabbit Ridge. The south side of the ridge is owned by Bandelier National Monument (BNM) as part of their Alamo Boundary Trail section. The north side, facing NM-4, is owned by the Valles Caldera National Preserve and affords beautiful views into the Valles Caldera.

Unnamed Knob That Anchors Far Eastern End of Rabbit Ridge

Felsenmeers of Rabbit Ridge

There are 4, counting the one on Rabbit Mountain. The second one from the east (left) is hidden.

Coyote Call Trail-Rabbit Ridge Road Intersection

Take the right turn and follow the road up to the top of Rabbit Ridge. It's almost 2 miles up but gradual and easy walking.

Logjam on Rabbit Ridge Road

When I visited, the road was well cleared with this being the only blockage. It didn't really pose an obstacle, though, since at this point, you're very near the top of Rabbit Ridge. The logjam is basically right where you turn right to go up onto Rabbit Ridge on a cross country ski trail. Volunteers maintain the area.

1940's Dendroglyph at Intersection of Rabbit Ridge Road and Blue Diamond Cross Country Ski Trail

It's hard to read the date--perhaps 1944 or 1949. The Bond family then owned the Baca Location No. 1, now the Valles Caldera National Preserve. Craig Martin has written an informative book on the Baca Location No. 1 called Valle Grande: A History of Baca Location No. 1. The book is in short supply but the Valles Caldera National Preserve still has copies for sale at the Valle Grande Staging Area's Welcome Station in the Preserve.

I didn't try to read the name on the tree but it was clearly carved by someone from El Rito, New Mexico .

Rabbit Ridge Road Deadends

This is the continuation of Rabbit Ridge Road beyond the logjam pictured above. Bandelier National Monument land lies beyond. You can continue on the road. It will deadend in the woods near a beautiful meadow informally dubbed Misty Meadow on the south side of Rabbit Ridge.

From Bandelier National Monument Boundary on Rabbit Ridge Road

This is looking back north toward the logjam pictured above.

Close Up of Orange Sign for VCNP Boundary on Rabbit Ridge

Bandelier National Monument Boundary Line Markers on Rabbit Ridge

Cross Country Ski Trail in the Woods on Rabbit Ridge

The north (left) side of the trail is on VCNP property while the south (right) side is in BNM.

Misty Meadow on South Side of Rabbit Ridge in Bandelier National Monument

It's easy to go down from this meadow and connect in with old logging roads in the Alamo Boundary Trail area.

View South of St. Peter's Dome in Bandelier National Monument's Back Country

Redondo from First Felsenmeer on Rabbit Ridge

The cross country ski trail takes you to the first felsenmeer and ends there. After that, keep close to the ridgeline--there's no real trail. You'll be walking in meadows and woods and have great views into the Valles Caldera to the north from Rabbit Ridge's felsenmeers and, on the south side, from the meadows of Rabbit Ridge, you'll see into Bandelier National Monument, all the way to Sandia Peak, east of Albuquerque.

Far Off View of Valles Caldera North Rim from First Felsenmeer

In the foreground, an arm of Cerro del Medio, east (right), reaches out to the lower reaches of Redondo, west (left), in the Valle Grande. On the right horizon is Cerro la Garita (splotchy bare areas) on the Valles Caldera north rim.

Cerro del Medio (Foreground) and the Valles Caldera North Rim and Northeast Rim (Background)

That's Cerros del Abrigo rising up just behind and to the left of Cerro del Medio. Both are ring fracture rhyolite domes that rose up all around the Valles Caldera after the volcano collapsed 1.2 million years ago.

The tallest peak, on the far right horizon, with the triangular bare meadow, is Tschicoma, at 11,561' elevation, the highest peak in the Jemez Mountains. Oddly enough, it's not on the topographic rim to the younger, approximately 1.2 million years old, Valles Caldera. Instead, Tschicoma is on the topographic rim of the older, approximately 1.6 million years old, Toledo Caldera. Some geologists deem the Valles and Toledo calderas, where two calderas collapses occurred 400,000 years apart, not as overlapping , separate calderas but as "multiple collapses" of the same caldera.

Hoarfrost at Edge of Felsenmeer

Lots of images of lovely hoarfrost are found on Google.

Distant View of Cerro Grande Peak and Pajarito Mountain

Cerro Grande Peak (right) and Pajarito Mountain (left) are on the Valles Caldera east rim. Here is more information on Cerro Grande and Pajarito Mountain in relation to the Valles Caldera Rim Trails.

South Mountain from Second Felsenmeer

That's Redondo to the right of South Mountain.

From Third Felsenmeer, Clockwise: South Mountain, Redondo, Redondito, and Cerro la Jara in Valle Grande

NM-4, the access route to the Jemez Mountains, runs along the edge of the Valle Grande far below.

Close-up of Sierra de Toledo on Valles Caldera Northeast Rim

I wonder if Cerro Toledo is the far right baldspot? The Valles Caldera Northeast Rim boundary is shared between the Valles Caldera National Preserve and Santa Clara Pueblo. Until public access and use issues are discussed between Santa Clara Pueblo and the VCNP, most of the northeast rim is off limits to the public.

Close-ups, (Clockwise, Foreground), Cerro Santa Rosa (Left) and Cerros del Abrigo (Right) and a Tiny Portion of Cerro del Medio (in Front of Abrigo) and, Background, Cerro de la Garita (Left) and Garita Ridge-Hunter's Point (Right)

Bandelier National Monument Boundary Line Marker at Third Felsenmeer

Could that be Sandia Mountain in the background?

Rabbit Mountain From Third Felsenmeer

It was late afternoon and time to turn around--it would have been all downhill and then all uphill from here to Rabbit Mountain's summit and I was plumb out of pluck so I saved it for another day.

Segment 12: Valles Caldera North Rim--Valles Caldera Northwest Rim--Twin Cabins-Pipeline Road, Hilton View, and Cerro de la Garita

2007-12-03T22:57:00.002-07:00

Seasons and Sights Seen Along Valles Caldera North-Northwest Rim

Summer

Twin Cabins-Pipeline Road Gate in the Northwest Corner of Valles Caldera National Preserve

Four Views of the Forests and Meadows of the North Rim

The north rim is so far away from everything. It is heavily treed in places and a morass of logging roads with few views into the caldera. There are crisscrosses of downed timber. It was frankly impossible to start north rim explores before summer because the access road, Forest Road (FR) 144, was covered up high with heavy snows. Despite these deficits, the Valles Caldera north rim will draw you in and draw you back, again and again, because it is an area of peaceful beauty and solitude.

One cautionary note about the Valles Caldera rim--in places where the rim wanders around in the woods, which describes a lot of the north rim, figuring out if you’re really on the rim is not intuitive. I wonder how people like me who have a distorted sense of direction that not even a GPS can compensate for will find their way! Some ideas that have been suggested to help people find the rim trails are marking the route with diamonds like cross-country ski trails, making waypoints of the Valles Caldera Rim Trails for download, and making a dedicated map of the whole route.

Ring-Fracture Domes with Resurgent Dome Beyond

This photo is a good argument for taking field notes while you are photographing the caldera. That’s Redondo for sure in the background and this is looking into Valle San Antonio but then I’m unsure if I’m seeing all three of the Valles Caldera northwest ring-fracture domes or only two of them. I’ll just give you the line up of domes and their elevations in the northwest corner from east to west: Cerro San Luis,9510’, Cerro Seco, 9931’, and then San Antonio Mountain which has two peaks, 10,908’ and 9988’.

The caldera has a paid, reservation only hike to Cerro Seco. You are allowed 4 short hours to wind around Cerro Seco on old logging roads. It hardly even leaves enough time to go to the top, picnic, and get back on time to catch the van ride back to your vehicle. You really have to hustle to do it and where’s the enjoyment in that?

Redondo Peeking above Hilton View

The golden grass of late summer and Redondo Peak are seen from Hilton Cabin View which is near the Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF)-VCNP boundary gate above the Hilton Cabin. At one time, the VCNP had a hike to Hilton Cabin and this hillside was the endpoint of the 12 mile roundtrip hike. People groused that the views weren’t worth the distance walked so the VCNP eliminated it. It wasn’t profitable to drive a few people the long distance to the trailhead. That’s sad, because the hike was a wonderful way to become acquainted with the charms of the north rim’s solitude, beauty and isolation. It’s a bad idea to have people’s appreciation of the Valles Caldera National Preserve be driven by the bottom line!

View from Cerro de la Garita toward Grasslands of North Rim

From the north rim, looking northeast, are the grasslands of Garita Ridge-Hunter’s Point, right, and Cerro de la Garita, left. Polvadera’s bald spot is peeking up above Cerro de la Garita and Tschicoma and the grasslands above Santa Clara Canyon rim are above Garita Ridge-Hunter’s Point. The Valles Caldera is viewer friendly because from most anywhere on the rim you’ll get very satisfying views of other parts of the rim and into the caldera.

The Sierra de Toledo Is Jam-Packed into the Toledo Embayment

Looking eastward from the north rim, you can see, clockwise, the grasslands of Garita Ridge-Hunter’s Point, the grasslands on the Santa Clara Canyon rim, Tschicoma, an unnamed peak, Cerro Toledo, Indian Point, and Turkey Ridge, with its upside down Hershey-Kiss bald spot. All those domes in front of Tschicoma are in the Toledo Embayment and are Cerro Toledo Rhyolite domes formed after the Toledo Caldera collapse. Collectively, these domes are called the Sierra de Toledo and form the northeastern rim of the Valles Caldera. The reciprocal conservation easement between Santa Clara Pueblo and the VCNP runs along the crest of the Sierra de Toledo. Although hiking on the VCNP side of the easement is not forbidden by the easement wording, this area is off-limits for now.

Cerro Seco and San Antonio Mountain

This is looking southwest at the two westernmost ring-fracture domes of the Valles Caldera--Cerro Seco (left) and San Antonio Mountain (right).

The views that can be seen from the grasslands of Cerro de la Garita on the north rim include the Nacimientos, Mt. Taylor, the cliffs below FR144, FR 144 itself, Cerro San Luis, Cerro Seco, San Antonio Mountain, Redondo Border, Redondo, Cerro Santa Rosa, Trasquilar, Cerros del Abrigo, Cerro del Medio, the Sierra de los Valles on the east rim, Rabbit Ridge-Rabbit Mountain-Las Conchas-Los Griegos on the south rim, and Garita Ridge-Hunter’s Point, Cerro Toledo, Indian Point, Turkey Ridge on the north-northeast rim. In short, the views from Cerro de la Garita are spectacular! Of all the rims, the north rim is the highest. In part, this may be because landslides in the geologic past have steepened the north rim, especially above Valle San Antonio, where Cerro de la Garita is located, which has numerous landslide blocks that have come off the north rim wall.

A unique feature of views from Cerro de la Garita is how close the views are of the northern ring-fracture domes and the resurgent dome, Redondo--close enough that you can clearly visualize the ring-fracture encircling the resurgent dome and this leads to greater understanding of the Valles Caldera than just reading about it in a geology treatise or looking at photos! With the Valles Caldera Preserve’s mandate to become financially self sufficient by 2015, a price is put on what is priceless: learning firsthand about this beautiful natural wonder of the world!

Valles Caldera Northern Moat Rhyolites from Cerro de la Garita--the North Rim Supreme

Looking southeast from Cerro de la Garita, the Valle San Antonio is to the west (right) and Valle Toledo to the east (left). San Antonio Creek flows between the two small domes in the center. Trasquilar is on the north (left) and is an exquisite, miniature, conical dome of Cerro Toledo Rhyolite making it a ring-fracture dome of the Toledo Caldera which predates the Valles Caldera by four hundred thousand years.

On the right of Trasquilar, and looking like a flying saucer, is Santa Rosa, part of the larger Cerro Santa Rosa dome complex that extends behind it in a long, southwestward ridge. To the left of Santa Rosa is Cerros del Abrigo. Cerro del Medio is next to Abrigo but it’s lower and you can only see an arm of it reaching out to divide the Valle Toledo from the Valle de los Posos, of which only a thin smear is visible. Cerros Santa Rosa, Cerros del Abrigo, and Cerro del Media are all ring-fracture domes that rose up around the resurgent dome, Redondo, after the collapse of the Valles Caldera.

This photo also shows the northeast-east (left) and southeast-south (right) Valles Caldera rims. Going around clockwise (left horizon), beginning above Valle Toledo, are the west and east Cerros de los Posos domes on the northeast rim and then on the east rim are Cerro Bonito, Pajarito Mountain (with two peaks), and Cerro Grande (the latter three are part of the Sierra de los Valles that lies west of Los Alamos). Continuing clockwise past Cerro del Medio and Cerros del Abrigo is the southeast-south rim with Scooter Peak, Rabbit Ridge, Rabbit Mountain, and the Paso del Norte area.

Hiker Overlooking Valle San Antonio from Cerro de la Garita on North Rim

Late Afternoon on North Rim Logging Road

I have to admit, even though I have complained a lot about not being able to hike wherever I want on the Preserve, I feel sympathy for the difficult and complex task the Preserve has before it. The Valles Caldera Trust has been given by Congress the conflicting goals of sharing the Valles Caldera National Preserve with the public, while yet protecting and preserving the integrity of the land, and all the while working toward financial self-sufficiency by 2015.

If you take the time to read the 2006 Report to Congress, which is a very interesting document and is available on the Valles Caldera National Preserve website, the budget numbers tell a story. In 2006, the Valles Caldera Trust’s revenues earned from all recreation activities were less than 9% of its total expenditures. It’s obvious that since the public is allowed only limited use of the Preserve, the idea being to keep the Preserve from being overrun by swarms of people and overwhelmed by snarls of traffic like at Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, or the Great Smoky Mountains national parks, the Preserve’s fortunes lie elsewhere rather then in allowing more open access to the general public. A few people will get a quality experience on the Preserve and the majority will get no experience at all. Is that fair?

The north rim has a lonely spaciousness that is addictive. Any plans for public access and use that the Trust makes could preserve this rare experience of space-enough not by excluding people but in equitably distributing recreation opportunites throughout the Preserve so as to not overly concentrate activities or vehicles into any one area. The over-concentration of people in scenic hotspots is behind the problems of overcrowding at national parks like the Great Smokey Mountains where the main problem is vehicular traffic--too much of it.

I wonder how many people out there are infected, like I am, with an incredible longing to explore the inner sanctum of the Valles Caldera National Preserve and frustrated that after eight years, the progress is so slow in allowing greater public access?

If you care about the future of the Preserve and your access to it, let me remind you again that in 2008 the Valles Caldera Trust will continue the planning process for visitor use and access on the Valles Caldera National Preserve. Check the Valles Caldera National Preserve website for notice of upcoming public meetings and how to submit comments. Please be part of the process. Let the Trust know your concerns.

Valles Caldera Northwest-North Rim

Click on the map to enlarge it and look at the boundary line between Rio Arriba and Sandoval counties at the top, middle of the map. You'll see that "Cerro de la Garita" appears twice--once south of Rio Arriba county, on the Valles Caldera National Preserve, and once north of Sandoval county, on Santa Fe National Forest land in the northern Jemez Mountains. To access Cerro de la Garita from within the SFNF, take either the northern leg of FR 144 out of Española or FR 100-FR 99 out of Youngsville to intersect FR 144. To access Cerro de la Garita on the VCNP is presently not possible by mere mortals!! You can get close, though, by signing up for the VCNP's La Garita hike. The La Garita hike is located to the east of Cerro de la Garita and gets you on the north rim for spectacular views! That hike is off this map but check the map in Segment 1.

Special thanks to Donald and Dorothy Hoard for their encouragement and help on this project.

Segment 10: Valles Caldera West Rim--San Antonio Hot Springs, San Antonio Canyon, FR 144

2007-12-03T22:49:00.000-07:00

Seasons and Sights Seen Along and Near Valles Caldera West Rim

Spring

Below West Rim in San Antonio Canyon

This is San Antonio Hot Springs in San Antonio Canyon. On Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF) land, it’s accessed via Forest Road (FR) 376, off NM-126. This is part of the caldera that is freely open to the public because it is outside the boundary of the public land of Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP).

Cliffs below FR 144 and the West Rim

These cliffs are across from San Antonio Hot Springs and are below FR 144, on the west caldera rim. All along FR 144 are single track motor bike trails that parallel the Valles Caldera west rim and can easily be followed by hikers as well. This is the same FR 144 that accesses the north rim from Española. It wraps around both the west and north rims. The part of FR 144 that parallels the Valles Caldera west rim is accessed from NM-126, northwest of La Cueva.

Autumn

Hiking Group on FR 376 along San Antonio Creek

The gate to FR 376 is often closed, making for very long treks into San Antonio Canyon.

Signed Gate at VCNP boundary in San Antonio Canyon: Your Public Land Lies Beyond!

Confusing Sierra de Toledo Domes on Northeast Valles Caldera Rim

The Sierra de Toledo on the northeastern rim of the Valles Caldera is seen from Valle San Antonio. From this view, all I know for sure is that Turkey Ridge, 10,741’, is on the ridgeline above the distinctive triangular bald spot on the right. Indian Point, 10,241’, and 500’ lower, is just to the left of Turkey Ridge and almost a continuation of it. Cerro Toledo, 10, 930’, almost 200’ higher than Turkey Ridge, is one of the two bald spots behind Turkey Ridge and Indian Point. If forced to, I would vote for the one on the right. Someone please invent a peak finder for the Sierra de Toledo range!

Near Single Track Motor Bike Trail on West Rim

This is just east of FR 144, near a single track motor bike trail that runs along the west rim of Valles Caldera, above San Antonio Canyon. Since the motorbike trail is on SFNF land, it’s hikeable now without reservation, fees, or permission.

An interesting observation is how these motorized trails skirt the long way around obstacles like fences, hills, and drainages, sometimes even going back out to FR 144. A hiker’s first impulse, though, is to avoid such long detours and take the most direct route. Another possible issue is that the single track motorbike trails can seem very steep to non-motorized users. The motorbike trails also tend to get quite rutted on uphill sections.

Boxy San Antonio Mountain, beyond the cliffs of Thompson Ridge, is in deep cloud shadow. It’s the westernmost of the ring-fracture domes in the VCNP. The VCNP once had a hike that went up San Antonio Mountain, starting across from the Cerro Seco hike, but I’ve been told it wasn’t very popular because of the heavy tree cover and lack of views. I wish I could have hiked up San Antonio Mountain before they axed the hike as not popular and therefore not profitable. It’s a detriment to have profitability be the bottom line determining where people are allowed to explore in the Preserve.

From this cliffy section of the west rim, nearly above San Antonio Hot Springs, very far off sights can be seen of Los Griegos and Peralta Ridge on the south rim. There are also views of the west side of Redondo-Redondito and Redondo Border and down into the La Cueva area. The west rim itself, however, can be elusive or blocked from view when you try to see it from the other rims because it is lower in altitude and has no prominent peaks. Geologists have determined that the Valles Caldera is a trapdoor caldera that collapsed deeper in the east than in the west which accounts for the other rims being higher than the west rim. The best places to spot it are from the Cerro de la Garita on the north-northwest rim and from the highest points on the south-southwest rim.

While the southern portion of the west rim has cliffs overlooking San Antonio Canyon, on the northern part of the Valles Caldera west rim, you are surprisingly close to the caldera floor. There is an amazing place on the northwest rim where you can stand on a narrow, low divide and simultaneously look at the head of a drainage going downhill into the caldera on one side while just a few yards away, a different drainage runs away from the caldera and the two never meet!

Valles Caldera West Rim: West FR 144

I'm fascinated by the many canyons that feed into Cebolla Canyon --Lake Fork, Barley, Bear, Oat, Hay, Pony, Road, and Twin Cabins--but never enter the caldera. Because the west-northwestern rim is relatively low , I would have imagined that erosion might have breached it by now. But, then again, the Valles Caldera is young--a mere 1.2 million years old. Maybe I should come back in a couple of million years and check out the situation!!

Some have suggested that there could be an alternate route in the area of the Valles Caldera west rim in the vicinity of San Antonio Canyon. One route would follow the true, topographical west rim that goes along and mostly parallel to west FR 144. There are the single track motor bike trails that run along the west rim that could be multi-use trails.

Others suggest that an alternate route could be followed by going from Jemez Falls to the Thompson Ridge Road, FR 106, and following that down into San Antonio Canyon, coming out practically on top of the Valles Caldera National Preserve boundary fence, and then climbing out of San Antonio Canyon on a road that intersects West FR 144. You would have to walk about 8 miles in on Thompson Ridge Road to the Santa Fe National Forest boundary and then it's about 4 miles to the Valles Caldera National Preserve boundary fence. I'm not sure of the distance from the VCNP boundary fence up to West FR 144. On this map, Thompson Ridge is the area bounded by San Antonio Creek on the west, Sulphur Creek on the east, and San Antonio Mountain to the northeast.

This alternate route is not on the true west rim but it has the advantage of providing an easy way of negotiating one's way across the immensely steep San Diego Canyon, starting from Battleship Rock, to connect with the west rim, above La Cueva. Besides which, San Antonio Hot Springs would provide a welcome interlude for hot, tired, dusty thru-hikers! Routing the rim trail through San Antonio Canyon would be a way to have both a Valles Caldera rim adventure and yet also have the experience of being within the caldera.

Segment 8: Valles Caldera Southwest Rim--Cat Mesa, Cerro Colorado, and Battleship Rock

2007-12-03T22:44:00.000-07:00

Seasons and Sights Seen Along Valles Caldera Southwest Rim

Spring

Southwest Rim on Cat Mesa

Near the southwest corner of the rim, in Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF), tent rocks are on Cat Mesa with Virgin Mesa’s cliffs, above San Diego Canyon, on the skyline.

Battleship Rock Below Cat Mesa

Below Battleship Rock, in San Diego Canyon, is where the East Fork of the Jemez and San Antonio Creek join to become the Jemez River which eventually winds up at the Rio Grande.

Battleship Rock, along with El Cajete and Banco Bonito, are the youngest of the Valles Caldera’s moat rhyolites that erupted around Redondo, the resurgent dome.

Battleship Rock anchors, in the most literal sense, the southwest corner of the caldera rim. There is a rough trail, accessed off East Fork Trail 137, not far from Battleship Rock Picnic Area, to the top of Battleship Rock--quite an aerie! I was in a group of hikers that walked to the top years ago. Currently, though, for safety reasons, the Santa Fe National Forest, Jemez Ranger District, prohibits hiking to the top of Battleship Rock.

Cerro Colorado on Southwest Rim below Cat Mesa

View from Cat Mesa Cliff of Cerro Colorado and Battleship Rock with Virgin Mesa’s Cliffs Beyond

Cerro Colorado is the heavily treed, reddish undulation below Cat Mesa. It is part of the true Valles Caldera southwest rim. A route needs to be explored off Cat Mesa, 8400’, down to Cerro Colorado, 7789’, and across the Jemez River, to the base of Battleship Rock, approximately 6800’, to make possible a walk down the true rim in the southwest corner of the Valles Caldera.

To continue on the west rim, which runs along Forest Road (FR) 144, one would have to climb back up to approximately 8700’. How do you do it--climb Virgin Mesa, in the background here, climb Cebollita Mesa above La Cueva ? Walk along busy, paved roads, NM-4 and NM-126, up to FR 144? Will you be a rim trail purist and only hike on the true topographical Valles Caldera rim? Or, will you have an official route but also an alternate route like in Bandelier National Monument’s hike up Cerro Grande that has both a steep, heavily used, official route and a less crowded, less steep unofficial route?

All is not lost, however! Recently, Valles Caldera Rim Trails volunteers had a beautiful explore down a very good trail off Cat Mesa to the Jemez Falls picnic area. We were able to cross the Jemez River on a fishermen’s bridge of rocks and logs without breaking out the Tevas!

To get to this trail, the group followed the Valles Caldera rim along FR 135, Cat Mesa Road, just off FR 10, up from Vallecitos de los Indios. There was a spectacular viewpoint, off FR 135, of Cerro Grande, Rabbit Ridge, Los Griegos, South Mountain, Redondo, and the Banco Bonito lava flow. We could also see the Copar Pumice Mine and the mine’s reclaimed land. Further along, Cerro Pelado could be spotted south of Los Griegos. Right beneath the trail going down to Jemez Falls, which skirts along a drainage off Cat Mesa, we could look down on impossibly tall and skinny tent rocks. We could also see to the west the spectacular cliffs above San Diego Canyon. I did not take any photos on this Cat Mesa Road-Jemez Falls explore but others did and they will be posted on the Valles Caldera Rim Trails website.

Three Photos of Cat Mesa’s Formidable Cliffs

Cat Mesa's cliffs, above the East Fork of the Jemez River, are beautiful and breathtaking and walking along them feels like flying! On one stretch, though, the cliffs were so steep and slathered with prickly bushes that we we could not follow the rim but had to bypass downhill, behind the line of cliffs.

In the bottom photo, that’s Redondo peeking around the corner! We did not get soaked by the storm clouds.

Valles Caldera Southwest Rim: Cat Mesa, Cerro Colorado, Battleship Rock

The portion of the Valles Caldera Rim that's along Cat Mesa Road, FR 135, and Cat Mesa, is southwest of Vallecitos de los Indios and is accessed via FR 10, the road to Ponderosa, which begins at the turn-in for the Sierra de los Piños housing development, off NM-4.

Cat Mesa Road turns west (right) off FR 10 and you can park anywhere and head north to walk along the rim. Cerro Colorado and Battleship Rock are to the northwest below Cat Mesa's cliffs. The hot springs upstream (east) from Battleship Rock is McCauley Warm Springs and is a very popular destination year-around. It can be accessed either from Battleship Rock (hikers park free just off NM-4, north of the actual entrance to Battleship Rock Picnic Area) or from Jemez Falls Trailhead.

It would be best to buy a current Santa Fe National Forest map for any serious explorations of all that the Jemez Mountains have to offer. They are widely available at bookstores, travel stores, sporting goods stores, and Santa Fe National Forest office locations.

Segment 7: Valles Caldera South Rim--Peralta Pass, Las Conchas, and Los Griegos

2007-12-03T22:38:00.000-07:00

Seasons and Sights Seen Along Valles Caldera South Rim

Special thanks to Gary Salzman for the incredible job he did documenting the October 2005 Los Griegos explore! His report, Valles Caldera South Rim FR 10 to Peralta Pass, dated October 16, 2005, is found on Segment 7 , South Rim, Peralta Road to FR 10, Forest Road 280 to Forest Road 10, on the Valles Caldera Rim Trails website. Gary took photos and collated them with two trip reports by rim trail volunteers, made numerous maps to graphically illustrate our route, and wrote an introduction. We appreciate your help immensely, Gary!

Autumn

Valle Grande View of Las Conchas Peak

The perfectly conical Las Conchas Peak is seen from VCNP Road VC01, the entrance road to Valle Grande Staging Area. There are blue diamond cross-country ski trails around Las Conchas that connect with the cross-country ski trails in the Peralta Pass-Corral Canyon-Paliza Pass-Los Griegos area. These trails are a way to get onto the Valles Caldera south rim.

Valles Caldera South Rim and East Fork of the Jemez from Valle Grande

Taken from VCNP Road VC01, this portion of the south Valles Caldera rim has pointy Las Conchas and lumpy Los Griegos, which is partially in the clouds, with the East Fork of the Jemez in the foreground.

Cliffs on Los Griegos

The Los Griegos route is to the left of the cliffs. If you follow the grazing allotment fence on Los Griegos when you are descending, it will lead you to the top of the cliffs.

For more information on Los Griegos, see Segment 7 on the Valles Caldera Rim Trails website, to read Dorothy Hoard’s summary trip report, Valles Caldera South Rim Peralta Road to FR 10 Forest Road 280 to Forest Road 10, dated October 2006, and reports by three Valles Caldera Rim Trails volunteers, titled Valles Caldera South Rim FR 10 to Peralta Pass , dated October 16, 2005.

Southwestern White Pine Cones Dripping with Fragrant Sap on Los Griegos

The top of Los Griegos is loaded with huge southwestern white pine or good old pinus strobiformis, per Dorothy Hoard.

Paliza Pass

Pretty Paliza Pass, near Los Griegos Mountain, is a fantastically peaceful lunch spot on a weekday! That belies the fact that Paliza Pass is a crossroads with the Upper Los Griegos Road coming up from NM-4, cross-country ski trails coming from the Peralta Road-Corral Canyon-Las Conchas-Los Griegos area, and Paliza Canyon Road, Forest Road (FR) 271, that starts at the pass and continues south, past Cerro Pelado. And, of course, Paliza Pass is on the Valles Caldera south rim!

Peralta Road Area

Taken somewhere along the south rim, probably near Peralta Road. The red is in case a hunter was unable to interpret the obtuse New Mexico big game hunting schedule!

Dorothy Hoard carries a notebook and sits down at opportune times to write her “memoirs” which serve as a starting point to her very well-documented trip reports. You can read summaries of her work on the Valles Caldera Rim Trails website--just click on an individual segment.

She’s not going to like this but I have to say that Dorothy is the mastermind behind documenting the Valles Caldera Rim Trails and does an incredible amount of work to portray the possibilities and opportunities for the routing of a rim trail. After doing this tiny project of trying to identify my photos and write captions and legends, I appreciate so much more the work that Dorothy does week after week on behalf of the entire Valles Caldera Rim Trails!

South Meadows of Massive Redondo from Upper Los Griegos Road

The Valles Caldera’s resurgent dome is seen from everywhere!

Long Ridgeline of Las Conchas Peak

Remember the perfectly conical view of Las Conchas from Valle Grande? Well, in this view, you still see the cone but you also see how Las Conchas morphs into a long ridge to the south. A blue diamond cross-country ski trail contours high on the mountain on this west side. There is one place with an opening that has good views toward the west but mostly, trees block any views. Taken from Upper Los Griegos Road which used to be drivable to Paliza Pass from NM-4 but now has Grand Canyon size ruts.

Valles Caldera South Rim: Peralta Pass, Las Conchas, and Los Griegos Area

These maps I've posted are meant only as an introduction to the geography of the Valles Caldera Rim. Don't rely on them to find your way on the rim or to determine current land boundaries. Either buy a set of USGS 7.5 minute series topographical quad maps that cover the entire Valles Caldera National Preserve (Valle San Antonio, Cerro del Grant, Polvadera Peak, Valle Toledo, Redondo Peak, and Bland) or purchase this map, Valles Caldera: Map and Geologic History of the Southwest's Youngest Caldera by Kirt Kempter and Dick Huelster.

On the map, Peralta Pass is the divide between Corral Canyon, which drains into the Valles Caldera, and Peralta Canyon, which drains away from the caldera. Corral Canyon is the drainage to the northeast of Las Conchas Peak that has two springs in it. Click on the map to enlarge it and you'll see the word "Corral" in a meadow. Peralta Canyon is the big drainage east (right) of Peralta Ridge--the north-south ridge with Las Conchas on it. The big drainage to the west, between Peralta Ridge and Cerro Pelado, is Paliza Canyon--its drainage flows away from the Valles Caldera.

Segment 6 Prelude: Valles Caldera South Rim--Rabbit Mountain, Paso del Norte, and Peralta Pass

2007-12-03T17:33:00.001-07:00

Seasons and Sights Seen Along Valles Caldera South Rim

Summer

Overview of Paso del Norte-Peralta Pass Area from Valle Grande

Taken from Valle Grande Staging Area, looking toward NM-4, this is the south rim, going west (right) from Rabbit Mountain along the Paso del Norte-Peralta Pass area of the Valles Caldera rim. Note how much lower in elevation the Paso del Norte-Peralta Pass portion is. It’s a steep way down from Rabbit Mountain to continue west along the rim. A possible route, on VCNP property, leads down a logged, windswept, southwestern arm of Rabbit Mountain and would let you out exactly at Paso del Norte at the cattle guard on Paso del Norte Road, Forest Road 268. The Valles Caldera rim then goes uphill on a single track motorbike trail to Peralta Pass.

I didn’t yet own a camera when we explored the south rim from Paso del Norte to Peralta Pass so this photo is only a prelude to that area. On the Valles Caldera Rim Trails website, there are more photos and information on this area.

Segment 5: Valles Caldera South Rim--Scooter Peak and Rabbit Mountain

2007-12-03T15:34:00.001-07:00

Seasons and Sights Seen Along Valles Caldera South Rim

Spring

Meadow on Top of Scooter Peak

Meadow at Base of Scooter Peak

A golden grass meadow near the top of Scooter Peak has a far-off view of Peralta Ridge. Scooter Peak is the rounded, heavily-treed dome (second picture) that’s catty corner (southwest) from the trailhead parking for the official Cerro Grande Route. “Scooter” is what the benchmark at the top reads but no one seems to know where the name came from. Don’t expect tremendous views from on top, but if you want a lovely, peaceful place, this is it. In a wet springtime, the small pond in the meadow at the northeast base of Scooter trills with the songs of spring peepers!

Two ways to get up Scooter are to either walk in on the Bandelier National Monument’s Alamo Boundary Trail, off the Dome Road, Forest Road (FR) 289, or on the Valles Caldera National Preserve’s free Coyote Call Hike. On both routes, walk to the pass between Rabbit Ridge and Scooter Peak and then go up an old logging road to the east. When you reach the grassy meadow, there is no real trail but you can work your way, more or less north, to the top.

Redondo from Rabbit Mountain’s Felsenmeer

From the felsenmeer on Rabbit Mountain, don’t you know, it’s Redondo! Views from Rabbit Ridge into the Valles Caldera are breathtakingly aerial. Rabbit Ridge can be accessed from Bandelier National Monument’s Alamo Boundary Trail or from the Valles Caldera National Preserve’s free Coyote Call Hike. Once on the ridge, it’s easy to follow the ridgeline, stopping to take in beautiful views from several small rock fields along the way to Rabbit Mountain.

Looking West from Rabbit Mountain at South Rim

Again, from Rabbit Mountain’s felsenmeer, clockwise, the south rim (left) includes the area between Paso del Norte Road and Los Griegos Mountain. Just to the right of Los Griegos is San Diego Canyon, which is in the southwest corner of the Valles Caldera rim. The Nacimientos are on the furthest western horizon. South Mountain is on the right and the Valles Caldera west rim hides behind it. In front of South Mountain, the Valle Grande is a lake of brown grass with NM-4 swimming at its edge.

Rabbit Mountain and Tschicoma Are Snowy While Valle Grande Is Snow Free

From Rabbit Mountain, Valle Grande with Tschicoma’s snowy triangle framed by bare aspens. This is beautiful country and hiking up Rabbit Ridge is one way to see it in person. The best part is that you can go up the Valles Caldera National Preserve’s free Coyote Call Hike to Rabbit Ridge and you don’t need to make a reservation or ask anyone’s permission!

The East Rim from Rabbit Ridge

The views from Rabbit Mountain are vast and include the northeast and east rims of Valles Caldera. In the immediate foreground is the continuation of Rabbit Ridge, as it arcs to the north with Cerro Grande and Pajarito Mountain being just above it. Valle Grande and Cerro del Medio are in middle foreground. The Rincon de los Soldados is inside the little hooked arm of Cerro del Medio. The northeast Valles Caldera rim is the line of domes that lie between Tschicoma and Cerro del Medio.

Summer

Rabbit Ridge from Valle Grande Staging Area

Rabbit Mountain West (Right) to Paso del Norte from Valle Grande Staging Area

Rabbit Ridge-Rabbit Mountain with early morning ground fog that will burn off quickly as the sun rises but makes everything magical while it’s there. The “notches” in the tree cover on top of Rabbit Ridge are where small rock fields are located that provide great views into the caldera. These photos were taken from Valle Grande Staging Area, looking toward NM-4.

Valles Caldera Southeast and South Rim: Rabbit Mountain and Scooter Peak

To the northeast of Rabbit Mountain, 3029 meters (9938'), is the summit of Scooter Peak, 2957 meters (9701').

The Alamo Boundary Trail is located in the meadows of the upper Alamo Canyon headwaters area between Rabbit Mountain-Rabbit Ridge and Scooter Peak. Bandelier National Monument acquired the Upper Alamo Canyon watershed in 2000 when the Baca Location was purchased by the federal government. The Alamo Boundary Trail opened to the public on September 10, 2005, the same day that the Cerro Grande Route opened. It was a momentous day for outdoor enthusiasts who had waited for almost 30 years to set foot legally on the beautiful southern portion of the Valles Caldera rim.To get precise directions to the Alamo Boundary and the Coyote Call trails, please see Craig Martin's book, Los Alamos Trails.

Segment 4: Valles Caldera Southeast Rim--Cerro Grande and Valle Canyon Pass

2007-12-03T13:46:00.001-07:00

Seasons and Sights Seen Along the Valles Caldera East Rim

Winter

Snowshoers Starting up Official Cerro Grande Route in Bandelier National Monument

The official Cerro Grande Route trailhead and parking is across NM-4 from Bandelier's Upper Frijoles Trails. There is overflow parking nearby at the intersection of the Dome Road, Forest Road (FR) 289, and NM-4. Cerro Grande is on the Valles Caldera southeast rim and this official route gets to the top of Cerro Grande in 2 very steep miles. The trip is well worth it any time of year!

Cerro Grande High Pass in Winter

This is the high pass between Cerro Grande and an unnamed peak to the southwest and is the final steep trek before the summit. Fog and flurries rolled in all day, making the landscape a study in black and white.

Foggy View into Valle Grande from Cerro Grande’s Summit

This was the best view into the Valle Grande on a foggy, frosty winter day! On a clear day, you can see stupendous views of the north rim of the caldera as well as the Valle Grande, Redondo, and the south rim. You can also look away from the caldera and see all the way to Sandia Mountain with all the enchanted backcountry of Bandelier National Monument in between!

Spring

In Bandelier National Monument on the Official Cerro Grande
Route

The official Cerro Grande Route is a way to get onto the southeast rim from Scooter Peak on the south rim. The hiker is walking a section that parallels a branch of Frijoles Canyon. The headwaters of the El Rito de Los Frijoles originate up high on Cerro Grande and flow down Frijoles Canyon all the way to the Rio Grande.

The ridge above the greening aspens is the easternmost arm of Cerro Grande. There is an unofficial route in Bandelier National Monument that goes up this ridge to Cerro Grande’s summit. It is slightly longer but has a more gentle grade. On the way up, there are great views of the Water Canyon drainage west of Los Alamos and the whole Rio Grande Valley. Check Eclectic Resources on this website for a book by Joan and Gary Salzman which gives directions to this unofficial route.

Cerro Grande High Pass in Spring

On September 10, 2005 when the official Cerro Grande Route opened and the mountain saw more people on it than it had for 30 years, I watched from high above this pass as an elk peered out of the woods and cautiously hesitated before scampering across. The hike remains very popular.

Beyond the high pass, the heavily treed slopes of Scooter Peak and Rabbit Ridge end at NM-4, which curves along the Valle Grande.

Redondo in Valle Grande from above Cerro Grande’s High Pass

South Mountain is the peak to the left of Redondo. In front of it is the petite, forested knob of Cerro la Jara, where the Valles Caldera National Preserve’s Valle Grande Staging Area is located. Both are moat rhyolite domes of the caldera which means they sprung up around the edge of the caldera’s outer ring fracture.

Near Cerro la Jara is where you can check in for most activities offered on the Preserve. Parking, restrooms, and a small gift shop are here also. Drop by for their hour long History and Geology tours--only $5 each and no reservation is needed. Find the days and times these are offered by clicking on the calendar on the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) website .

Handline Used to Fight Cerro Grande Fire

This path starts at the top of Cerro Grande and descends north, following a handline that was cut during the fighting of the May 2000 Cerro Grande Fire. It begins as an idyllic walk in a pretty woods on a well-worn trail but soon turns steep and rock-strewn! It’s very doable, though, even in deep snow on snowshoes. The route is easy to follow because it essentially keeps to a heavily treed, north-south trending ridge. The sides of the path are littered with cut trees from the construction of the handline so you know for sure you’re following it. Since the handline is on the VCNP, it is off-limits for now.

This section of the Valles Caldera rim running from the top of Cerro Grande to the top of Pajarito Mountain via Valle Canyon Pass is key to opening up the chance for hikers, cross-country skiers, snowshoers, runners, bicyclist, birders, wildflower enthusiasts, and all who love the outdoors, to have great car shuttle hikes between Cerro Grande, Pajarito Mountain and Valle Canyon.

In 2008, the VCNP will continue its planning for public use and access. The Valles Caldera National Preserve official website is where news of this process will be posted. Many people express interest in hiking around the Valles Caldera rim but so far, there are not hundreds who are organized and clamoring for a rim trail. Please let a major land manager of the caldera rim--the Valles Caldera Trust--know that you want the Valles Caldera National Preserve rim to be opened up for the public to enjoy! Please also check the Valles Caldera Rim Trails website for contact information for all the other major land managers along the caldera rim and let them know that you want a Valles Caldera rim trail. The public needs to express strong interest in a rim trail for it to happen.

Walking the Handline on Cerro Grande’s North Arm

Valles Caldera Rim Trails volunteers are going down a rocky part of the handline. This doesn’t look as steep as the part I’ve nicknamed Elevator Shaft!
Walking down the handline, you catch pocket glimpses through the trees of the caldera on one side and Pajarito Mountain on the other. There is even a postage stamp view of Tschicoma to the far north.

Rock Field on Cerro Grande Saddle

Hazy view of Cerro del Medio can be seen from a small rock field on the handline. If you position yourself just right, there are far off views of Redondo and of Garita Ridge-Hunter’s Point. If tippy rocks are not your style, you can easily bypass this felsenmeer by going around it in the woods.

Valle Canyon Pass

Pilgrims entering the fabled, promised land--Valle Canyon Pass, below the heavily treed southern flank of Pajarito Mountain.

This is the pass that is on VCNP land and is closed to the public. Valle Canyon Pass is such an important connector for the Valles Caldera Rim Trails because without it, there’s a huge gap on the Valles Caldera rim that’s impossible to otherwise bridge between Cerro Grande and Pajarito Mountain. The Valles Caldera Rim Trails as a cohesive whole are essentially dead-in-the-water if Valle Canyon Pass is not opened up. The rim between Cerro Grande and Pajarito Mountain has the potential to be the most well-used section because of its easy access via paved roads from nearby sizable population centers. The Valles Caldera National Preserve is public land and there’s no good reason why this connector cannot be opened up now for the public to use.

Autumn

Valle Canyon Pass in Autumn

Valle Canyon Pass, below the eastern side of Cerro Grande, is where, in autumn afternoons, bull elk bellow and their harems throng. This pass is an important connector following the Valles Caldera rim between Cerro Grande and Pajarito Mountain but it’s on VCNP land and off-limits for now. Let’s hope that soon the Valles Caldera National Preserve will open Valle Canyon Pass. It would make a lot of people very happy!

Valles Caldera Southeast Rim: Cerro Grande and Valle Canyon Pass

On this map, Cerro Grande looks like a massive, many-armed mythological creature and it dominates the southeast corner of the Valles Caldera Rim. The official route starts just east of where NM-4 intersects FR 289, the Dome Road. To find the Dome Road, click on the map to enlarge it, and then look in the left-hand corner, just above "2007". The unofficial route can be found at the bottom middle edge of the map, where it reads "Rel. 8/2005". It goes up the southern arm of Cerro Grande to the top. There is yet another way to go up Cerro Grande but it's just off the bottom edge of this map. Its called the County-Line Trail and its trailhead is located at where the boundary between Sandoval and Los Alamos counties intersects NM-4; there is a small parking spot on the north side of the road.

The bowl-like southern portion of Cerro Grande is the drainage basin that forms the main headwaters of El Rito de los Frijoles which runs through Frijoles Canyon all the way to Bandelier National Monument Headquarters and ends at the Rio Grande. It's not shown on this map but southeast of the intersection of NM-4 and FR 289 (the Dome Road) is a branch of the headwater source for the Rito de los Frijoles, located in the level area of the Upper Frijoles Trails. The sunny overlooks into Frijoles Canyon are perfect places to take a break and enjoy lunch with a view.

To the northeast of Frijoles Canyon is Water Canyon, another major canyon of the Pajarito Plateau, and it drains the area southeast of Cerro Grande. The main headwaters of Water Canyon, there are three branches, originate on a southeastern ridge of Cerro Grande. Valle Canyon is to the northeast of Water Canyon and nestles in between Cerro Grande and Pajarito Mountain, receiving drainage from both as well as being spring fed. Valle Canyon Pass is a divide between the Valle Canyon drainage and the Valles Caldera drainage; thus, it's part of the Valles Caldera topographic rim. Valle Canyon's fate is to eventually drain into Water Canyon; while Water Canyon empties into the Rio Grande River.

Segment 3: Valles Caldera East Rim--Pajarito Mountain and Cerro Rubio

2007-12-01T20:40:00.001-07:00

Seasons and Sights Seen In a Year Along the Valles Caldera East Rim

Autumn

Autumn Scene of North and Northeast Rim from Pajarito Mountain

From Rim Run on Pajarito Mountain Ski Area, looking northwest and going clockwise above the aspens on the left, the slope of Cerro del Medio is next to a little piece of Cerros del Abrigo. Continuing around on the north rim are Cerro de la Garita, the nebulous bald splotches on far left horizon, and Garita Ridge-Hunter’s Point, the elongated bald triangle on the middle horizon. Then on the northeast rim, are the range of domes called the Sierra de Toledo, with the horseshoe shaped bald spot possibly being Cerro Toledo. At the edge of Valle de los Posos, valle in the foreground, are the west (left) and east (right, with tiny patch of yellow aspens) Cerros de los Posos, Cerro Toledo Rhyolite domes.

The significance of the tightly packed domes of the Sierra de Toledo is that they anchor the northeast rim of the Valles Caldera. The true northeast rim is located within a reciprocal conservation easement between Santa Clara Pueblo and the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP). This easement abuts the boundary between Santa Clara Pueblo and the VCNP. The issue of public use and access within the VCNP side of the easement is one of the myriad issues that the VCNP will explore in years to come. People familiar with this area before 2000, when Baca Location No. 1 was purchased by the United States, say that there are beautiful views from this section of northeast rim. Perhaps with lots of patience, one day we’ll be able to see those views for ourselves. In the meantime, until the issue can be resolved, a check of Google Earth reveals lots of old logging roads that do not enter the easement. A way to bypass the easement, well below the true northeast Valles Caldera rim and the Santa Clara Pueblo boundary, could be explored but would require permission from the VCNP.

A lobe of Cerro del Medio separates the Valle de los Posos and Valle Grande(right) from the Valle Toledo (left). The Valle de los Posos births the San Antonio Creek, one of only two streams that drain outside the Valles Caldera. The headwaters of the other, the East Fork of the Jemez, arise at a divide between Valle de los Posos and Valle Grande. San Antonio Creek undulates through Valle Toledo and Valle San Antonio, toward San Antonio Mountain, and drains the northern and western caldera. The East Fork of the Jemez curves through the Valle Grande, through the Jemez National Recreation Area, and out San Diego Canyon, to drain the eastern and southern caldera. Both creeks join below Battleship Rock to become the Jemez River, which eventually empties into the Rio Grande.

Valles Caldera Topographic Rim from the Space Shuttle

The Valles Caldera rim mostly predates the actual caldera. Volcanism started in the Jemez Volcanic Field, which the Valles Caldera is part of, 14 million years ago and formed much of the highlands that now surround the caldera. The surface relief of these highlands is the topographic rim of the caldera and serves as the caldera’s water divide. On one side of the Valles Caldera rim, a raindrop trickles into the caldera and on the other, away from the caldera.

The rim is not the structural boundary of the actual caldera. The structural boundary is the perimeter of the ring-fracture around the resurgent dome and is well represented by the Valles Rhyolite ring-fracture domes (also called moat rhyolite domes) that surround Redondo. The difference in size between the structural boundary and the topographic rim of the caldera is mostly due to slumps and landslides that occurred after the collapse forming the caldera.

North of Pajarito Mountain Are Cerro Bonito and Tschicoma

Cerro Bonito, with a yellow aspen grove on its shoulder, is the unofficially named mountain just north of Pajarito. On the horizon is Tschicoma, with its enticing triangular meadow, and the long, bald ridge that runs west of Tschicoma is the rim of Santa Clara Canyon. Tschicoma and Santa Clara Canyon rim are not on the Valles Caldera rim but are on the rim of the Toledo Embayment.

The Toledo Embayment is “stuck” onto the northeastern Valles Caldera and forms the northeast rim of the caldera but geologists do not consider the embayment to be a part of the Valles Caldera. The embayment may have formed at the same time as the Toledo Caldera collapse 1.6 million years ago and thus predates the Valles Caldera which collapsed 1.2 million years ago. One theory is that a small arm of the Toledo magma chamber extended into what is now the present day embayment area and when the Toledo Caldera evacuated itself, so did the magma chamber extension and the Toledo Embayment was formed. After that, the ring-fracture domes of the Toledo Caldera, collectively called the Sierra de Toledo, filled up the embayment and nicely formed the northeastern rim of the Valles Caldera when it was formed.

Meanders of East Fork in Valle Grande

Late afternoon, from south meadow of Pajarito Mountain--the Valle Grande glistens with meanders of the East Fork of the Jemez. The south Valles Caldera rim wraps around the Valle Grande. Beginning, clockwise, are the broad, northern shoulder of Cerro Grande, the gentle, unassuming dome of Scooter Peak (with an unnamed peak between Cerro Grande and Scooter), and Rabbit Ridge west (right) of Scooter. On the middle horizon is South Mountain, next to a massive arm of Redondo. Skipping back across the Valle Grande from Redondo, a small lobe of Cerro del Medio hooks around Rincon de los Soldados, which is a small nook of the Valle Grande, nestled between the East Fork of the Jemez and Cerro del Medio.

East Rim and East Fork from Valle Grande

In October 2006, this was the first snow I saw in the Jemez Mountains. Taken from the entrance road to Valle Grande Staging Area, VCNP Road VC01, the image shows a portion of the east and southeast caldera rims. Low hanging clouds obscure Pajarito Mountain’s tree speckled south meadow while clouds have lifted above Cerro Grande’s snow powdered hump. The East Fork of the Jemez crosses under the road.

Winter

Winter Scene of North and Northeast Rims from Pajarito Mountain

This view of the northeastern and northern Valles Caldera rims from the freshly groomed Rim Run on Pajarito Mountain Ski Area was taken while snowshoeing to the top of Pajarito Mountain.

Valles Caldera Rim Trails is plural because it will be cobbled together of existing trails, routes, and roads of different land ownership. They may not even connect together elegantly unless some new trail sections are built. Parts of the rim, Los Griegos, for example, have no trail at all in places that yet are quite walkable. Other parts have theoretical connectors which still need to be explored, like the southwest corner, with its steep cliffs and the disconnect between the south and west rim caused by heavily traveled, paved state highways.

The Valles Caldera rim landowners, Bandelier National Monument (BNM), Los Alamos Ski Club, Inc.(Pajarito Mountain Ski Area), Santa Clara Pueblo, Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF), and Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP), have not even officially signed on to the concept of Valles Caldera Rim Trails yet. But you should not let this dissuade you from going out and walking the Valles Caldera rim today. The parts on BNM, Pajarito Mountain Ski Area, SFNF, and VCNP’s free Coyote Call Hike are open now for you to enjoy! To plan your hike, please check the Valles Caldera Rim Trails website for specific information on what’s open and what’s off limits.

Redondo: Valle Caldera’s Resurgent Dome

Pajarito Mountain’s double-barreled views into both the southern and northern ends of the Valles Caldera are incomparable! Redondo Peak and Redondito’s knob are seen from south side of Pajarito Mountain. Most anywhere on the Valles Caldera rim, you can safely say “Yep, there’s Redondo!”

After the powerful eruption that created the Valles Caldera, the magma chamber under the caldera eventually refilled but it had run low on volatile gases so instead of exploding magma, it uplifted the overlying rock and formed Redondo, the resurgent dome of the Valles Caldera. The resurgent dome actually broke into three segments due to faulting. Redondo Border is the western part of the resurgent dome and is separated from Redondo and Redondito, the eastern portion, by Redondo Creek. Yet a third section of the resurgent dome is located north of Redondito. It is bounded by the Jaramillo and San Luis Creeks and it is the least uplifted portion of the resurgent dome.

South Rim in Winter from Pajarito Mountain

From the backside of Pajarito, this is looking at the south rim of the Valles Caldera with Rabbit Mountain’s snow-covered felsenmeer gracefully arcing above Valle Grande. Rabbit Mountain’s distinctive rock field is clearly visible even from the north rim and is a good indicator of toward which direction you’re looking. Rabbit Mountain is a dome of Cerro Toledo Rhyolite formed after the Toledo Caldera collapse. Beyond Rabbit Mountain is Las Conchas and Los Griegos, also on the south rim. Within the Valle Grande (right of center) is South Mountain with tiny Cerro la Jara in front of it--both are ring-fracture domes of the Valles Caldera.

Spring

Small View of Rabbit Ridge from Camp May

At Camp May saddle, on the east rim, between Pajarito Mountain and Cerro Bonito, is a small view over toward the south rim’s Rabbit Ridge. Rabbit Mountain’s snow covered, squarish felsenmeer pops up on the right. Felsenmeer means, literally in German, sea of rock; it’s also called a rock field or block field.

Westernmost Knob of Pajarito Mountain Ski Area

From a meadow at Camp May saddle, looking toward the westernmost of Pajarito’s two peaks. This is where Rim Run, the westernmost ski run (furthest right), offers expansive views of the northern and northeastern Valles Caldera rims. Hidden in the woods near Rim Run is a trail that contours around this western knob. Someone has marked it by screwing bicycle reflectors onto trees. It’s dubbed the Reflector Trail and starts from lower Rim Run at a rock outcropping where snowboarders like to jump off boulders. It begins by crossing a small rock field, continues through the woods, and ends on Pajarito’s south meadow, above Valle Canyon Pass. It could be used as a possible connecting route, skirting Pajarito Mountain instead of going over the top, but such a trail would first need clearing as there’s much downed wood. A much bigger hurdle is that the Reflector Trail is on VCNP property and off limits for now.

Of all the paid, reservation only hikes offered within the VCNP, the only one that accesses the Valles Caldera rim is the La Garita Hike, which follows an old logging road up to the north rim of Garita Ridge-Hunter’s Point. Rabbit Ridge, on the south Valles Caldera rim, is jointly owned by BNM and the VCNP and can be accessed from either the VCNP’s Coyote Call Hike or BNM’s Alamo Boundary Trail for free, no reservation required!

Looking East Toward Los Alamos from Guaje Canyon Trail 282 in Cañada Bonita

Looking east toward Los Alamos from grasslands of Cañada Bonita on Guaje Canyon Trail 282 in SFNF. This trail winds around the west side of Cañada Bonita meadow, just outside the VCNP boundary fence and the Valles Caldera rim. Along the trail, between Cañada Bonita and Cerro Rubio, there are small views into the Valles Caldera. In places, it looks like just a hop, skip, and a jump but watch those cliffs! It is a popular trail used by hikers, hunters, runners, cross-country skiers, snowshoers, bicyclists and even the odd bear or two! Leafless now, the aspens will make your heart sing with their beauty in autumn.

Ubiquitous Redondo

Where could Redondo be? On top of the world, looking southwest from the expansive felsenmeer on Cerro Rubio. Trees have invaded the rocks but the views are still world class. In front of Redondo (left to right), are a lobe of Cerro del Medio and the logging road scalloped flank of Cerros del Abrigo.

South Rim on the Horizon

From Cerro Rubio, which is on the east Valles Caldera rim, Valle Grande is the far valle with Scooter Peak and Rabbit Ridge rising beyond on the horizon. On left, the ski runs of Pajarito Mountain Ski Area play peek-a-boo and Valle de los Posos is in the immediate foreground. On right, an arm of Cerro del Medio comes down, separating the Valle de los Posos from the Valle Grande.

Ring-Fracture Domes of the Toledo and Valles Calderas

The larger western dome of the Cerros de los Posos floats just in front of Cerro Rubio’s rock field, near the line of conifers. The Cerros de los Posos are Cerro Toledo Rhyolite domes that erupted after the Toledo Caldera collapse but before the Valles Caldera cataclysm. In the background (left), the logging road-scarred Cerros del Abrigo is a ring-fracture dome of the Valles Caldera.

Summer

Valle Grande Sunset from NM-4 Pullout

This is looking northeast across the Valle Grande at the Valles Caldera east rim. Pajarito Mountain’s tree-sprinkled meadow is pink.

The pullouts off NM-4 are hugely popular with droves of people stopping to observe and enjoy the Valles Grande from the roadside. On summer weekends, volunteers “man” the pullouts to answer questions people have about the VCNP. Some of the volunteers are from the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) headquartered at the Betty Ehart Senior Center in Los Alamos. The pullouts are also good places to watch elk in the caldera. If you want an even closer view of elk, check the VCNP website to sign up for a wildlife van tour .

Autumn

Golden Aspens on Cerro Bonito Seen from Cañada Bonita

Golden leaves are falling even as some aspens are summer-green! In SFNF, on Guaje Canyon Trail 282, looking south across the blond meadow of Cañada Bonita, is Cerro Bonito, which is the next mountain north of Pajarito. The Valles Caldera rim goes over Cerro Bonito to Camp May saddle but is closed to the public, who own it, at least for the meantime.

Map Shows Sweep of Southeast, East, and Northeast Valles Caldera Rims

The east rim of the Valles Caldera is composed by the Sierra de los Valles, the mountains west of Los Alamos, New Mexico. They are volcanic in origin too but precede by millions of years the formation of the Valles Caldera. Cerro Rubio isn't labeled on this map but it is the mountain northeast of the Cerros de los Posos, and just southeast of "Mountain" in the words "Shell Mountain".

Segment 2: Northeast Valles Caldera Rim

2007-12-01T13:46:00.000-07:00

Seasons and Sights Seen Near the Valles Caldera Northeast Rim

Summer

Looking Down on a Small Rock Field above Valle Toledo

Another View of Trasquilar between Valle Toledo and Valle San Antonio

Just above center, the small dome on the left is helmet-like Cerro Santa Rosa, part of the Cerro Santa Rosa dome complex. The tiny conical dome to the right of Cerro Santa Rosa is Trasquilar. Near here, the Rito de los Indios flows down from the Valles Caldera north rim into Valle Toledo and joins San Antonio Creek. San Antonio Creek then flows between these two small domes into Valle San Antonio, which lies beyond, to the west.

Geologists say that Trasquilar is a ring-fracture dome formed after the Toledo Caldera collapse. It is made of Cerro Toledo Rhyolite, which differs from the Valles Rhyolite that composes the Valles Caldera ring-fracture domes. The Toledo Caldera predates the Valles Caldera by a mere four hundred thousand years! They are about the same size and the Valles more or less collapsed on top of the older Toledo collapse. Geologists view the Toledo and Valles calderas as having originated from the same volcano crater erupting and collapsing twice and therefore do not define it as two separate, overlapping calderas. There are, nevertheless, a lot of complexities involving changes in the magma body over four hundred thousand years that make the two rhyolites different to geologists.

Looking South into Valle de los Posos with Valle Grande Beyond

Above Valle Grande is Scooter Peak (just off center on the horizon), with its shieldlike shape. Counterclockwise and east (left) of Scooter is a small unnamed peak, next to Cerro Grande. Beyond Cerro Grande, you can barely see the tops of ski runs on Pajarito Mountain. It mostly lies hidden behind a mountain unofficially named Cerro Bonito, immediately north of Pajarito.

The vast expanses of the Valles Caldera have universal appeal. An ever evolving photo gallery produced by many different people is needed to even begin to touch on all the wonders of the Valles Caldera. But nothing will ever replace ground truth--you need to get out to the Valles Caldera and explore it firsthand!

Valle San Antonio Looking toward Turkey Ridge and Northeast Rim

This very distinctive bald spot is below and to the right of Turkey Ridge. Turkey Ridge is a Cerro Toledo Rhyolite dome that sprung up between the collapses forming the Toledo and Valles calderas.

Other than Turkey Ridge, I struggle with trying to identify the domes in the northeast corner of the rim. They are so uniform in size and shape and jammed together so tightly that it’s difficult to distinguish individual domes. A fun resource to help understand the relationships is the Geographic Names Information System--its web address is in Eclectic Resources on this website. You plug in a geographic name and get a small satellite map from Google Earth that pinpoints the feature you’re looking for. When I did that with Turkey Ridge, this unusual looking bald spot, shaped like a map of South America, is clearly visible on the satellite view!

Northern Caldera Rife with Logging Roads

Often the old logging roads in the northern Valles Caldera, which haven’t been driven on for years, have become grassy meadows. The forests, heavily logged in the past, are once more thick with trees. The Valles Caldera Trust is working to develop a fire management plan.

Distant View to Northwest of Grasslands of Garita Ridge-Hunter’s Point

Next time you stand at one of the pullouts off NM-4, look north for the roughly-triangular bald area of Garita Ridge-Hunter’s Point and you’ll be looking all the way to the Valles Caldera north rim! This was taken from the northeast Valles Caldera.

Map of Valles Caldera Northeast Rim

This map is outdated because it doesn't show the correct boundary line for the northeast corner of the Valles Caldera National Preserve. The boundary was changed in 2000 when Santa Clara Pueblo was assigned purchase rights to the headwaters of Santa Clara Canyon which is the watershed of the Pueblo. The boundary between Santa Clara Pueblo and the Valles Caldera National Preserve runs roughly south from Cerro Toledo and then goes across the crest of the Sierra de Toledo, and southeast to Shell Mountain.

Segment 1: Valles Caldera North Rim--Garita Ridge-Hunter's Point and Cerro de la Garita

2007-11-29T21:09:00.000-07:00

Seasons and Sights Seen Along Valles Caldera North Rim

Summer

View of Valle Toledo from High Meadow on Garita Ridge-Hunter’s Point

Immediately surrounding Valle Toledo, clockwise, are the west dome of Cerros de los Posos, a ring-fracture dome of the 1.6 million-year-old Toledo Caldera, and two of the ring-fracture domes of the 1.2 million-year-old Valles Caldera, Cerro del Medio, and Cerros del Abrigo. On the very far horizon and on the Valles Caldera east rim, left to right, are Cerro Bonito, Pajarito Mountain (two peaks close together), and smoothly-rounded Cerro Grande, behind Cerro del Medio.

When the Valles Caldera magma erupted, it broke the surface rock into a ring-shaped fracture all around the collapsing caldera. The ring-fracture domes that encircle Redondo, the Valles Caldera’s resurgent dome, formed when residual magma continued to squeeze and erupt through the broken ring-fracture zone. If you want to better understand how the Valles Caldera was formed, please explore Eclectic Resources on this website.

One hike in the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) goes up the bald, grassy face of Garita Ridge-Hunter’s Point, following a dirt road up to the locked Garita Gate on the west end of the ridge. You don’t have to go all the way to the gate, though, to get fantastic views--just walk up the grassy face. At the top of the ridge are numerous logging roads coming in from the north; all lead back to the boundary fence between the VCNP and Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF). The VCNP calls the hike La Garita or Garita. The description of the hike in the September 2007 Draft State of the Preserve (page 45) refers to this area as Garita Ridge. Others say that historically this whole ridge was called Hunter’s Point. On USGS topo maps, neither name appears. This seems a grave oversight for such a lovely place. Regardless of what you wish to call it, sign up for this hike! The views are spectacular.

When you go on this hike, be sure to have a map and binoculars to study how everything fits together in the Valles Caldera. You’ll see close-up views of the ring-fracture domes (also called moat rhyolite domes) and valles of the northern caldera, plus far-off views all the way to the east and south rims. Kirt Kempter has taken wonderful panoramic photos of the Valles Caldera from this ridge. You can see them at both the Bradbury Museum and the Pajarito Environmental Education Center (PEEC) in Los Alamos.

If you don’t want to make a reservation for the Garita hike, there is another way to get to these great views. It involves, however, a very long drive on Forest Road (FR) 144 out of Española. After all that distance traveled, you are constrained to look at the beauty of your public land from behind a fence.

Eastern End of Garita Ridge-Hunter’s Point

On a SFNF map you’ll notice clearly the encroachment of Santa Fe National Forest into what was once the perfectly square Baca Location No. 1 land grant, in the Garita Ridge-Hunter’s Point area at the middle of the VCNP’s north rim. This happened in 1966, when the United States Forest Service made a land trade with Pat Dunigan, owner of the Baca Location, for an “access road”, which probably refers to the construction of FR 144.

At the eastern end of Garita Ridge-Hunter’s Point, the SFNF boundary makes a strongly V-shaped incursion into the VCNP. It’s rumored that the V-shape on the eastern end of the land exchange was made to allow people to get closer to the stunning views without trespassing on Dunigan’s land. Located here is a memorial to someone’s son and, nearby, prayer flags are attached to a tree. This “point” is obviously of great importance to people, because they make their way here even though the distances are great. Once here, though, they’re not allowed to set foot on the Preserve--even though they own it!

Autumn

Golden Aspens along FR 144

FR 144 runs west of Española and accesses portions of the Valles Caldera north rim that are on SFNF land. It’s truly an amazing road. From it, views of practically all of northern New Mexico can be had--these include Polvadera Peak, Cerro Pedernal, Abiquiu Dam, Clara Peak, and Caballo Mountain. In places, FR 144 wanders back and forth across the caldera rim and sometimes the road is smack-dab on the rim. Myriad old roads, trails, tree blazes, aspen dendroglyphs, gray weathered tree stumps are to be seen, and there are tons of peace and quiet. The 10,000’ elevation makes the hiking pleasant, and afterwards, on descending to 82-degree temperature in Española, makes you wish you’d stayed up there!

In Santa Fe National Forest on Cerro de la Garita, Looking toward South Rim

This excellent viewpoint is off on old logging road west of Garita Ridge-Hunter’s Point, near Cerro de la Garita. In the immediate foreground, looking south, are the Cerro Santa Rosa dome complex, Valles Caldera moat rhyolite domes. The complex comprises a large dome, 9701’ (above the tallest aspens) and a small dome, 9232’ (partially hidden behind the lone conifer on left). On the horizon are the Valle Grande with Rabbit Ridge-Rabbit Mountain, left, and the Paso del Norte-Peralta Pass-Las Conchas area, right. Beyond that, Sandia Mountain, east of Albuquerque, is a barely visible hump of blue haze

In Santa Fe National Forest on Cerro de la Garita Looking toward East Rim

A skinny piece of Valle San Antonio is at the right center, Valle Toledo is left, and a smear of Valles de los Posos is seen on the horizon. The Valles Caldera east rim is also on the horizon--left to right, Cerro Bonito, Pajarito Mountain (two peaks close together) and gently-rounded Cerro Grande. The ring-fracture domes preen beguilingly--Cerro del Medio, low-slung, in front of Cerro Grande, and Cerros del Abrigo, with its loads of aspens.

To me, standing on the north rim, looking into the Valles Caldera National Preserve, is much like seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time--I almost can’t believe what I’m seeing! It’s an astounding tableau of visual delight, especially in autumn with the yellow aspens!

Valles Caldera North Rim: Garita Ridge-Hunter's Point

On this map, Garita Ridge-Hunter's Point is the area that's plastered with waypoints. Cerro de la Garita arcs around the left middle of the map. Both are on the Valles Caldera 's north rim and both are partly on Santa Fe National Forest land and partly on Valles Caldera National Preserve land. They are accessed from FR 144 out of Española or from FR 100-FR99 out of Youngsville.

The waypoints are from when I went on the VCNP's La Garita hike. I've left the waypoints on the map so as to easily differentiate Garita Ridge-Hunter's Point from Cerro de la Garita which is to the west.

Valles Caldera Rim Eclectic Resources

2007-11-29T20:53:00.007-07:00

Advocacy Groups

Caldera Action!

Caldera Action! is a new group that replaces the Valles Caldera Coalition. Caldera Action! advocates low impact public use and preservation of the natural, cultural, and historical features of the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP). It desires much greater public participation in decisions affecting the VCNP and hopes to inspire more activism by the American people in all VCNP-related issues. Caldera Action! is concerned about what may happen to the Preserve’s unique landscape and the public’s access to it if the Trust doesn’t reach financial self sufficiency by 2015. The group believes that currently the Preserve is not being well managed and this negatively impacts both the protection of the land and the public’s access to it. Its vision, mission, and guiding principles are detailed on its website.

Los Amigos de los Valles Caldera

Los Amigos and Caldera Action! are both non-profit organizations but Los Amigos works very closely with the Valles Caldera Trust in helping it achieve the goals of protecting the Valles Caldera National Preserve, educating people about it, and achieving financial self sufficiency. Los Amigos does this by such actions as garnering volunteers and securing grants and donations. About Us gives specific details of how Los Amigos will collaborate with the VCNP Trust.

Books and Publications

Anschuetz, Kurt F. & Merlan, Thomas. More Than a Scenic Mountain Landscape: Valles Caldera National Preserve Land-use History. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-196. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, 2007.

Quote from the website:

“This land-use history deals mainly with the economic development of the locality over the 124 years of intense use and development. We provide a regional context in which the caldera’s users, from the first legal owners, the Baca heirs, to the last private owners, the James Patrick Dunigan companies, acted during their respective tenures.”

You may download chapters as pdf files. Appendix I includes an annotated bibliography.

Beard, Sam. Ski Touring in Northern New Mexico (2nd ed.). Albuquerque, NM: Nordic Press, 1991.

The Jemez Mountains section provides an invaluable aid to exploring the cross-country ski trails in the Peralta Road-Corral Canyon-Las Conchas-Los Griegos area, on or near the Valles Caldera rim. Even if you don’t ski, these trails can be used year-round. Sam Beard still regularly goes out with a crew of volunteers to maintain the cross-country ski trails in the Jemez Mountains.

Burns, Jim. Cross-Country Skiing in the Jemez Mountains. Santa Fe, NM: Mountain Empire Press, 1991.

This guidebook includes brief descriptions and topo maps of cross-country ski trails, from Paso del Norte to Los Griegos Mountain, which will get you on or near the Valles Caldera south rim.

DeBuys, William & Usner, Don J.. Valles Caldera: A Vision for New Mexico's National Preserve. Santa Fe, NM: Museum of New Mexico Press, 2006.

Both the essay by DeBuys and the photos and text by Usner provide a good way to get to know the Valles Caldera more intimately. It’s guaranteed that if you don’t care now about the Valles Caldera National Preserve, you will after reading this book!

Goff, Fraser. Valles Caldera: A Geologic History. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, May 16, 2009.

Fraser Goff is a retired Los Alamos National Lab geologist and adjunct professor in the University of New Mexico’s Earth and Planetary Sciences department. Fraser and his wife, Cathy, lead geology tours at the Valles Caldera National Preserve. Fraser has many years of experience leading geological tours.

This book is now published. Here are the details.

Hoard, Dorothy. Guide to Bandelier National Monument (4th ed.). Los Alamos, NM: Los Alamos Historical Society, February 12, 2009.

The book includes these hikes which are on the Valles Caldera rim: Cerro Grande, Scooter Peak and Scooter Pass (the latter two are accessed from the Alamo Boundary Trail). The book has been completely redone because there have been so many changes in Bandelier National Monument since the third edition, published in 1989. Here are the details.

Hoard, Dorothy. Los Alamos Outdoors (2nd ed.). Los Alamos, NM: Los Alamos Historical Society, 1993.

Even though much of the landscape around Los Alamos changed drastically after the 2000 Cerro Grande fire, this invaluable book will still teach you a lot about what you’re seeing in the Jemez Mountains around Los Alamos--the birds, the flowers, the geology, the past history. It includes directions, sketch maps, and interpretation for Guaje Canyon Trail 282 on the east rim of the Valles Caldera and the Canon de Valle hike which was a historic route into the Valles Caldera.

Kues, Barry S., Kelley, Shari A., Lueth, Virgil W. (Eds.). Guidebook 58: Geology of the Jemez Region II. Socorro, NM: New Mexico Geological Society, 2007.

This compilation of research papers and road guides, from the September 2007 fall field conference of the NM Geological Society, includes fascinating information on the geology of the Valles Caldera.

Martin, Craig. Los Alamos Trails (2nd ed.). Los Alamos, NM: All Seasons Publishing, 2006.

The second edition has many changes taking into account both the effects of the Cerro Grande Fire and the San Ildefonso Pueblo land transfer. It describes four hikes which will get you on or near the Valles Caldera rim: Canada Bonita-Guaje Canyon Trail 282, Alamo Boundary, Coyote Call, and Valle Grande. Waypoints, detailed directions, and inset topo maps are provided.

Martin, Craig. Valle Grande: A History of the Baca Location No. 1.Los Alamos, NM: All Seasons Publishing, 2003.

This well-researched book gives the history of the Baca Location No. 1 up to its acquisition by the United States government.

Matthews, Kay. Cross-country Skiing in Northern New Mexico. Placitas, NM: Acequia Madre Press, 1989.

The Jemez Mountains section gives directions and sketch maps to trails and roads that can get you on or near the Valles Caldera south rim in the area between Paso del Norte Road, Forest Road (FR) 268, and Peralta Road, FR 280.

Pettitt, Roland (Revisions and Maps by Dorothy Hoard). Exploring the Jemez Country (3rd ed.). Los Alamos: Los Alamos Historical Society, 1994.

Provides a fun-to-read orientation to the marvels and adventures the Jemez Mountains offer outside of the Valles Caldera. Trips on roads, both paved and dirt, take you to the southern and northern Jemez Mountains and to many of the sights you’ll also see from the Valles Caldera rim like Battleship Rock and San Antonio Canyon. The “3-D” sketch maps, a unique feature of all Dorothy Hoard’s hiking books, allow enjoyable and easy visualization of the geography.

Prisciantelli, Tom. America’s Great Western Volcanos. Santa Fe, NM: Sunstone Press, 2004.

This book contains a brief geologic interpretation of a hike which the author calls “Rim Hike”, on the south Valles Caldera rim, within the Santa Fe National Forest. It’s on Cat Mesa Road, FR 135, off FR 10. The author discusses the youngest volcanics in the Valles Caldera: Battleship Rock, El Cajete, and Banco Bonito. He uses both the East Fork Trail 137, starting from Battleship Rock, and a roadcut along NM-4 to interpret these southwestern moat rhyolites. It’s written by a non-geologist and is layman-friendly.

Salzman, Joan and Gary. Hiking Adventures in Northern New Mexico.Los Alamos, NM: Aventuras Publishers, 2006.

This innovative hiking book includes a cd chockfull of waypoints, photos, and Google Earth maps for each hike. Directions for the alternate, unofficial route up Cerro Grande and the hike along the north rim of Santa Clara Canyon, starting from Tschicoma, are in this book.

S. Self, G. Heiken, M. L. Sykes, K. Wohletz, R. V. Fisher, and D. P. Dethier. Bulletin 134—Field Excursions to the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico. Socorro, NM: New Mexico Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources, 1996.

Tom Prisciantelli says this is one of the sources he used and found helpful in writing America’s Great Western Volcanos.

Internet

Caldera Action!
Valles Caldera National Preserve

This bibliography on the Valles Caldera National Preserve was compiled by the now defunct Valles Caldera Coalition.

Geographic Names Information System

Quote from the website:

“The GNIS contains information about physical and cultural geographic features of all types in the United States, associated areas, and Antarctica, current and historical, but not including roads and highways. The database holds the Federally recognized name of each feature and defines the feature location by state, county, USGS topographic map, and geographic coordinates.”

You look up a place name and get a link to a Google Earth map that pinpoints exactly what you are looking for--a fun way to learn the geography of the Valles Caldera!

Grand Enchantment Trail

A 700 mile route that goes from Phoenix, Arizona to Albuquerque, New Mexico using existing trails and dirt roads. This concept of no-new-trails is a good precedent for the Valles Caldera Rim Trails in this era of federal government cutbacks of outdoor recreation monies.

Guaje Pumice and late Tertiary stratigraphy
Road Geology of selected sections in the Pajarito Plateau and the Jemez Mountains, North Central New Mexico

Be sure to click on the links to the figures because they include some wonderfully informative photographs.

Lists of John New Mexico Member Sites

You can find elevations for Valles Caldera summits either by county or elevation range. On the Sandoval County Summits list, many of the caldera peaks are listed with their elevation, the USGS quadrangle they are found on, and a small satellite view provided by Google Earth. A few even have photos of the mountain.

NG Geology
Geology of the Pajarito Plateau
Rocks of the Pajarito Plateau by Shari Kelley and Kirt Kempter
Pajarito Environmental Education Center

The Pajarito Plateau is the handiwork of the Toledo-Valles Calderas. This fascinating write-up includes photos of the rocks of the plateau going back in time from most recent rocks, El Cajete Pumice, to the oldest, the Santa Fe Group. The authors are geologists who have studied and mapped in the Jemez Mountains.

New Mexico Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources Publications

This website is a real thrill to those who love maps. You can download geological maps of the Valles Caldera as pdf files.

New Mexico Geological Society Publications

You can order Guidebook 58: Geology of the Jemez Region II on this website.

Resurgent calderas and the valles caldera

This page is on a website called Views of the Solar System. It tells how a resurgent dome such as Redondo forms. You can download a shaded elevation map and Landsat image of Valles Caldera from links at the bottom of the webpage.

Secrets of the Valles Caldera

Quote from the website:

“UNM Geologists Peter Fawcett and John Geissman study sediment samples of an ancient lake bed to gain insight on the Earth’s climate history.
by Robert Julyan”

This 2004 article serves as a hint to the large amount of important scientific research that is conducted on an ongoing basis in the Valles Caldera National Preserve. It’s easy for hikers to forget that the Preserve has a purpose besides recreation!

United States Geological Survey Cascade Volcano Observatory

Warning: This website can lead to serious web browsing!

The Valles Caldera 1
The Great Desert: Geology and Life on Mars and in the Southwest
Valles Caldera 1 - Overview

In two chapters--illustrated with Space Shuttle photos - is everything you always wanted to know about how the Valles Caldera formed!

Valles Caldera 1
The Great Desert: Geology and Life on Mars and in the Southwest
Valles Grande Caldera - Geologic History 1

Five chapters contain an excellent introduction to the Valles Caldera with good photos of volcanics in the area and also Space Shuttle views of the caldera. Keep hitting “Next” to see all five chapters.

VallesCaldera.com

I just discovered this website. It says that it started in 2000. It's wonderful! I am still having fun exploring it. I especially recommend the Views from the Sky aerial tour of the Valles Caldera. It has an up to date blog on the Valles Caldera.

Valles Caldera Geology

Quote from the website:

“This web site is designed to provide information on the Valles Caldera as this national treasure is opened up to the public. This site contains links to news stories about the Baca Ranch purchase, photos of the unique geologic formations, as well as information about the history, geology, and recreational opportunities in the area.”

You will enjoy looking at David Neal’s panoramic photos of the Valles Caldera as well as the Space Shuttle photos. There is a lot to explore on this website so click away with abandon!

Valles Caldera National Preserve Reference Documents

Here you can download the State of the Preserve - DRAFT, September 2007, as a pdf file. It has a good bibliography of publications relating to the Valles Caldera under Chapter 6, “Literature Cited”.

Volcanology and Geothermal Energy

Wohletz, Kenneth, and Grant Heiken. Volcanology and Geothermal Energy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.

This book is available in electronic form on eScholarship Editions. Both authors are geologists: Wohletz works at LANL and Heiken is retired from LANL. If you look up “Valles Caldera” in the index, you will be able to find interesting diagrams and information.

Volcanos of New Mexico
NM Museum of Natural History

The New Mexico Museum of Natural History website provides information on New Mexico volcanos, including Valles Caldera and the Jemez Volcanic Field. The website has links to other Internet volcano resources.

You can also download a pdf file of this paper:

Crumpler, L. S., and Lucas, S. G. (2001). Volcanoes of New Mexico: An Abbreviated Guide for Non-Specialists. Volcanology in New Mexico. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 18, p. 5-15.

This paper presents information, in layman-friendly form, on about two dozen volcanic areas in New Mexico.

Maps

Kempter, Kirt & Huelster, Dick. Valles Caldera: Map and Geologic History of the Southwest's Youngest Caldera. Santa Fe, NM: High Desert Field Guides, 2007.

Great primer on the geology of the Valles Caldera is on the back of the map! One can visualize the outline of the caldera rim on this shaded relief map.

Smith, R.L., Bailey, R.A., and Ross, C.S.. Geologic Map of the Jemez Mountains. New Mexico: U.S. Geological Survey, 1970.

This is the original geologic map of Jemez Mountains and Valles Caldera (scale 1:125,000). It can be ordered from the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources (NMBGMR) (Stock# I-571). A new version, authored by Fraser Goff and others, should be out soon. In the meantime, you can freely download on the NMBGMR website the updated, individual USGS 7.5 minute series topographical geologic quad maps that cover the entire Valles Caldera National Preserve--Valle San Antonio, Cerro del Grant, Polvadera Peak, Valle Toledo, Redondo Peak, and Bland.

Valles Caldera National Preserve Maps Overview

Click on “STATIC” to download maps of various hikes and activities offered in the Preserve. The other link, “DYNAMIC”, has been under construction for years. It was originally planned to have linked interactive maps with photos, but this hasn’t happened yet. The VCNP is plagued with frequent staff shortages. Congress’s refusal to pass a permanent budget the past two years only worsens the situation.

Photos

Car trip into the Valles Caldera National Preserve 8-26-2006
Photo Gallery by Bob Walker

The caldera publicized a Drive and Discover day open house in 2006 but had to shut down early, turning away droves of disappointed visitors. Bob Walker was one of the lucky ones who got into the sacred inner sanctum that day. There are only 18 photos but they include shots of a long line of vehicles on the VCNP’s entrance road, an elk herd, mushrooms, and the Valle Grande.

Don Usner - Photography

Don Usner has on online photo gallery of the Valles Caldera National Preserve. Click on “galleries”, then “places”, then “valles caldera”, and prepare to be astounded!

Geomosaics

Kirt Kempter makes amazing panoramic photos of the Valles Caldera from both the north and south rim. The panoramas can be custom-ordered from Pajarito Environmental Education Center and the Chamber of Commerce in Los Alamos or from the Audubon Center and the Public Lands Information Center in Santa Fe or by contacting Kirt through his website.

Jemez, New Mexico

The fifth photo down on this page is by Roland Pettitt It’s taken from the top of Redondo Peak and shows a view of the Valle Grande, looking east toward the Valles Caldera east rim and beyond to the Sangre de Cristos. It’s unique because the top of Redondo is now off-limits to the general public. This is another one of those gray areas which the Valles Caldera Trust will have to face one day. The Preserve’s enabling legislation does not bar the public from hiking on Redondo.

This website is Volcano World - The Web’s Premier Source of Volcano Info and its purpose is to help children in grades K-12 learn about volcanos. But for some of us whose understanding of science is, ahem, rudimentary, this is the perfect website to learn about volcanos!

Redondo Peak, Roland Pettitt, National Park Service, no date.

Photography and Photo Tours by Kimber Barber

Click on Galleries and then on Valles Caldera National Preserve. When you click on the thumbnails, you get an enlarged photo that has Kimber's Photography© emblazoned across it to copyright protect the photos from downloading. The photos are very beautiful and Kimber's love for the Valles Caldera shines brightly.

Valles Caldera National Preserve

Valles Caldera National Preserve

This is the official website of the Valles Caldera National Preserve.

Valles Caldera Rim Trails

Valles Caldera Rim Trails

This is the official website of the all-volunteer effort to have a rim trail around the Valles Caldera. It’s a brand-new website that will be a valuable resource for anyone who wants to explore the Valles Caldera rim. On this website, you can view photos and read trip reports by volunteers who have walked segments of the rim and learn what areas of the rim are open right now and which are off-limits for the meantime.

Volunteer

Los Amigos de los Valles Caldera

Los Amigos provides information on available Preserve volunteer opportunities and also posts contact e-mails for Mick Trujillo, VCNP Volunteer Coordinator, and Misty Blue, the VCNP’s head interpreter, who coordinates the “roadside interpreter” program held at pullouts along NM-4 that overlook the Valle Grande.

Retired Senior Volunteer Program

Irene Powell
RSVP Director
Betty Ehart Senior Center
Los Alamos, New Mexico

If you are 55 and older, you can join RSVP to volunteer for "roadside interpreter" alongside the Valle Grande at pullouts on NM-4. The idea is to have volunteers stationed at the immensely popular turnouts to answer tourist’s questions, hand out information on VCNP activities, and encourage people to drive into the Preserve’s Valle Grande Staging Area, 2 miles in at the main entrance, off NM-4, where there is a gift shop and the opportunity to take an hour long, no-reservation-needed, History or Geology tour.

The "roadside interpreter" program is also open to people under age 55 and is coordinated by Misty Blue, the VCNP’s head interpreter. (To contact Misty, see the entry above for Los Amigos de los Valles Caldera.)

I am not officially associated with the Valles Caldera National Preserve.

Whose Woods These Are

2007-11-23T21:55:00.001-07:00

I took a hike on Thursday, November 15, 2007, with the Valles Caldera Rim Trails volunteers. Dorothy parked her car at the intersection of FR 10 and the Cat Mesa Road, FR 135. This is just up the road from the Sierra de los Piños housing development, in the Vallecitos de los Indios, in the Jemez Mountains, NM. We started east from the intersection on an unnumbered dirt road.

The idea of this Valles Caldera south rim explore was to connect in with the route of an earlier trip to the top of Los Griegos done in Autumn 2005. We would follow the true rim east from FR 10 whereas the 2005 trip was only on the Valles Caldera rim whilst hiking up the western ridge of Los Griegos.

Right away, Ed spotted turkey tracks in the dry dust. I hardly ever see the turkeys--just their tracks. As we walked, I envisioned myself quietly watching a flock of turkeys walking across the road at sunrise.

We followed the unmarked road for about 3/4 of a mile, but then left it for the woods and a fence just north of and parallel to the road. After a little bit, we intersected an abandoned road that was at a right angle to the barb wire fence. The road continued north of the fence and we wanted to see where it went. We decided that we’d come back to follow it if there was time at the end of the hike. We turned south and followed the abandoned road back to the main dirt road.

Throughout the day, we didn’t see much in the way of real, live animals. I can’t remember if it was elk or cows that Ed spotted in the distance on one of the roads we intersected. We saw an aspen that had perfect bear claw marks going up the trunk further than I’d like to think a bear could climb! We saw lots of deer and elk tracks in the dust.

What’s surprising is all the signs of people we saw in the woods--the dirt road bed had yellow warning ribbon exposed by erosion that cautioned about the electrical line buried underneath. We passed an electric fence with a warning sign from the forest service to go very slowly through the gate but the gate was missing. We saw a sign for Jemez Mountains Electric Co-op next to some manhole covers for what could have been meter boxes. We could hear the racket of heavy machinery somewhere below and Ed said that was from a pumice mine. It was most likely Copar’s South Pit Pumice Mine, off FR 270, located immediately south of the road we were on. There is another pumice mine--the Cerro del Piño Pumice Mine, on FR 10, run by Utility Block, an Albuquerque maker of cast concrete that’s been mining pumice deposits in Santa Fe National Forest since the 1940’s--but it was even further south of our road. Strolling along, we saw a sign posted on a tree that said it was a Northern Arizona University (NAU) School of Forestry Silviculture Lab Experimental Research Area. I couldn’t find it specifically on the NAU website. Perhaps this explains what’s going on. Here and there in our wanders, we saw variously colored plastic flags dangling from trees. We saw groups of trees that had three white bands painted around them and one that had white numbers arranged vertically on its trunk, probably to mark an archeological site but other than a moundish area, there was nothing much to see. We found the ruins of what was once a very sturdy , timber structure in a pretty meadow. Throughout the day, we saw a Clamato jar, beer and soda cans, rifle and shotgun shell casings--all had been carelessly tossed aside. Why don’t people litter money or gold or silver?? Dorothy found a Bureau of Land Management benchmark at a fence corner. The only person we saw was in an old Suburban-type vehicle that passed by with dog yapping inside. We were impressed at how well he drove over the deep ruts but had no idea where he had come from.

The views along our route were bashful ones of mountains glimpsed very distantly through the trees--Redondo, Los Griegos, Pelado, Cerro del Piño. To the west, we could see the cliffs above San Diego Canyon and rising smoke from a prescribed burn beyond the cliffs. Dorothy pointed out a very far off view of a prominent roadcut on NM-126, above La Cueva, and the Valles Caldera west rim. At one point, early in the hike, I glimpsed a very distant view of what I’m sure was Pajarito Mountain’s tree speckled south meadow.

By following twists and turns of dirt roads, with a few short passages through the woods, continuing generally east toward Los Griegos, Dorothy was able to intersect, via her Garmin GPS track, the path of the 2005 trip to the top of Los Griegos. At that point, we headed uphill toward Los Griegos through a lot of dead fall to have our lunch in a leafless, towering aspen woods, but still far below the top of Los Griegos.

At the end of the hike, Dorothy said she had found out that it was possible to follow roads east from the FR 10-Cat Mesa Road intersection to Los Griegos. Dorothy always makes a map of our route when she gets home. I would like to know if we were always on the true Valles Caldera rim. The Valles Caldera rim makes a big southward bow to stay on the high points which form the rim in this area.

We started the hike a little before 9 am and got back to Dorothy’s car around 3:30 pm. The hike was 7.67 miles total. We’ve saved for another day exploring the old, abandoned road that crossed the barb wire fence.

A bashful, through-the-trees view of Redondo Peak, the resurgent dome of the Valles Caldera, looking northward.

Pretty meadow.

Ruin of timber structure in pretty meadow.

Los Griegos which is on the Valles Caldera south rim.

Dorothy and Ed going through terrible deadfall on the way toward Los Griegos. On the way down, we went more to the south (right) and there was less deadfall.

Aspens near our lunch spot.

I only took a few waypoints but they show the trend of our hike was toward Los Griegos.

San Antonio Canyon near Valles Caldera National Preserve Boundary

2007-11-12T20:07:00.000-07:00

I had the good fortune last week of driving in on the Thompson Ridge Road, FR 106, to Mushroom Basin in the Jemez Mountains . The road is dirt and wasn't bad for a passenger car--a couple of rough spots. There are good views of Redondo and Redondo Border while you're driving in. You access Thompson Ridge Road, FR 106, off NM-4. It's on the right before you get to La Cueva, New Mexico. There's a housing development there--Sulphur Estates, I believe it's called.

I parked at the Santa Fe National Forest boundary and walked 4 miles, approximately, to this beautiful spot in San Antonio Canyon, on Santa Fe National Forest land that is below the west rim of the Valles Caldera. This is literally just outside the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) boundary fence and near the signed and locked gate that forbids you from entering the Preserve. The sign says temporarily closed to the public and has said that for 7 years now. It's odd but in the Preserve, San Antonio Canyon is called Valle San Antonio and here, it's just plain old San Antonio Canyon. This place is west of the westernmost ring fracture dome of the Valles Caldera, San Antonio Mountain but is still within the topographic rim of the Valles Caldera.

In the photo above, San Antonio Creek is downhill and not visible. FR 376, that you access off NM-126, outside La Cueva, is across the creek . If you notice the opposite hillside, on the left where there are some gray, leafless aspens, there is a road, barely visible, that goes up out of San Antonio Canyon to FR 144. (FR 144 is also accessed off NM-126, not far past the turn off for FR 376.) If you walk that road up to the top, you will be on the west rim of the Valles Caldera. Since it's on forest service land, you're allowed to walk on it without paying money or making a reservation. There is a single track motorbike trail that runs along the Valles Caldera west rim, paralleling FR 144. The motorbike trail, though, tends to waver all over the place to avoid obstacles like grazing allotment fences and drainages. It sometimes seems to go on and on and is very steep and can be rutted on uphill sections.

This is looking across the VCNP fence toward the northwest rim of the Valles Caldera. A lot of the northwest rim is on VCNP land and is heavily wooded. From the northwest rim, you can see close up views of Cerro Seco and San Antonio Mountain, two of the ring fracture domes of the Valles Caldera, and also Redondo.

I like this area because it's isolated, there's not a lot of people on a weekday at least, and it's peaceful and beautiful.