Valles Caldera National Preserve, abutting Bandelier National Monument to the north, was formed by the collapse of the “caldera” of an ancient volcano about 1.25 million years ago. Today it appears, magically out of nowhere as one drives up winding roads in the Jemez Mountains from Los Alamos, NM, winding through forests of Ponderosa pine at over 8000 feet, and then, on your right, an immense grassland without trees but with wooded hills dotted across it, lava domes created somewhat later. This is Valle Grande, the southern and most accessible part of the Preserve, which is much larger. One can access some of it on dirt roads, and requires a back-country permit. A mile from the entrance, reached by a road where ones car is improbably surrounded by bluebirds, making it seem as if you are driving through the introduction of a Disney cartoon movie, is the visitor’s center, today staffed by mask wearing Americorps volunteers as well as a ranger who were happy to provide information from a safe distance.
Our first stop was
the restroom facilities, an outhouse that would not be worth mentioning if it
were not for the fact that between the two doors, under the peak of the roof,
was a bluebird nest with little fledglings looking out, waiting for their
mother to return with lunch!
There are a few relatively short trails near the “front” that one can take dogs on. The closest, which we did, is called the La Jara trail, appropriate as it circles the Cerro La Jara, just west of the visitor center. It starts off through a large prairie dog village to the north of the cerro, and is dotted with wild (elk and coyote) and more domestic (cow and horse) scat. It is supposed to be 1.4 miles, but can be longer if one loses it (it is a trail marked through grassland by the traffic of hikers only, and it seems they have been fewer recently) and heads off instead on the track that goes north toward the Cabin District (old ranching cabins). At some point you decide that you have gone too far past the Cerro and need to make your way back and find the trail. This is easy to do as it is flat grassland. Well, it is easy to see where you need to go. In fact, the grass hides not only uneven ground but occasional marshes…
The hike is not at all difficult, flat and short, but it is entirely open without shade and even at 8500 feet it is sunny. Especially when you take your mask off for the hike and it not only no longer protects your nose, but it has apparently rubbed off the sunscreen you so meticulously applied, something you notice on looking in a mirror on your return. And, of course, while we are pretty acclimatized to the altitude having spent a month already at nearly 7000 feet outside Santa Fe, that haze in the air is smoke from the Medio fire northeast of Santa Fe (and a new smaller one in the Jemez to the south, plus smoke blowing down from fires in Colorado) and does make breathing a bit tougher and riskier, so we’re glad we haven’t gone on one of the longer hikes.
I have realized that taking photos outside with one’s phone is a crapshoot, since any appreciable amount of sunlight makes it impossible to see what is on the screen. So my panoramic video of the Valle Grande is mostly sky. However, here are two pictures that capture a little of what the valle and cerros look like.
I think it is also worth noting that, while having Americorps volunteers and young folks (meagerly) paid by a conservation foundation assisting the rangers is good, it is not as good as having enough rangers and enough resources to make the most of the magical lands that are the US National Park System. Our federal budget for the National Parks should be enormously increased. They should not have to depend upon increasing user fees (although these fees are suspended during the pandemic). They belong to all of us and their maintenance should be paid for by our taxes so that they can shine as the gems they are. Expecting them to be “self-supporting” or not “money losers” is not only absurd, it is an insane inversion of what our federal dollars should be paying for. Indeed, it is just as absurd as saying the US Postal Service is “losing money”! This is another area that, 180 degrees opposite from what the administration is doing, should have vastly enhanced support. And, of course, a third, less popular, federal agency that needs its budget hugely enhanced is the Internal Revenue Service, so it can ensure that billionaires and corporations do not continue to evade paying their taxes as they do now. I absolutely support laws increasing the taxes they should pay, but right now I would be satisfied with their paying the taxes legally due from them!
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