During a road trip through the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico, my good friend Nori Ann Reed and I rounded a curve and stumbled on the Valles Caldera National Preserve, a collapsed volcano crater.
I was trying valiantly NOT to play “travel writer” on this trip, so I didn’t take very good photos or notes, but the place keeps coming back to me as somewhere I want to return.
Doesn’t look like much, does it? Lotsa grass. Big deal.
What’s amazing is that the background you see beyond Nori Ann (we were at a roadside pulloff on Highway 4, part of the Jemez Mountain Trail Scenic Byway) is much larger than it appears.
We rounded a corner on a twisty mountain road to see this massive open area, and when we looked down into it, we realized that the few tiny, ant-like beings we saw were cars and people down there. It is MUCH bigger than it initially appears.
Have any of our readers been way down into the Caldera? What’s it like down there?
Even on a “no travel writing trip” I couldn’t stand it; great discoveries have to be documented. 🙂
Related posts:
- Walk through New Mexico history at Bandelier
- PT Video: Native American dance in Albuquerque
- I’m paying HOW much to be unimpressed?
- Reach for the sky in Albuquerque
ooh, I have that same problem! I am not able to go anywhere anymore without my camera, hoping that I will find some fun shots that I can write about down the road. :-). So far, my husband has been pretty tolerant!
Hi Gudrun,
I made through most of that day in the Jemez, remaining “unplugged,” but once I started scribbling notes again it was hard to stop.
Fortunately, I can’t seem to find where I put them once I got home….at least I found the pictures.
I also discovered this amazing vista on a scenic drive outside of Los Alamos. It was 2000 and I thought the valley was called Grande Valley and could not locate it on the web for years. My son is graduating college in a couple of weeks and is planning a road trip and even though he was only 12 at the time he remembered its beauty and wanted to return this time around,
Thank you for your post!! It helped us find Valles Caldera!!
BTW-I found this site to be so spectacular I was concerned that the Grand Canyon ( another destination on our road trip) would disappoint me! Different but just as breathtaking!
I too look forward to returning.
This is an Amazing place. It is now a National Preserve! http://www.vallescaldera.gov
It used to be a private ranch up until 2000. There is a wealth of New Mexico history in this place. Geologists from around the world come here because it is the model of a “resurgent caldera”. What you see just from the road is just ONE of the SEVERAL expansive valleys within this preserve. The Valle Grande is 6,000 acres! and the whole preserve is 89,000 acres! You can drive down INTO the caldera Fri, sat, and sunday 9-5 during the winter months and EVERYDAY during the summer months ( Mid may-October)
There is lots to do here : hiking, fishing, interpretive van tours, wildlife tours, biking, horsebackriding, snowshoeing and cross country skiing, sleigh and wagon rides….
It truely is a gem to stummble upon! I LOVE THIS PLACE!
Updating the link that was offered in the comment above — https://www.nps.gov/vall/index.htm