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Red Line = Rim, Purple Line = Forest Road 144, Green Line = Potential Trail
Valles Caldera North Rim
Garita Gate to Indios Pass
Introduction. The Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) owns the center of the north rim of the Valles Caldera. The preserve is closed to unrestricted access, but has offered hikes in this area for a fee. The Santa Fe National Forest owns the remainder of this section of the rim and manages it under its multiple use policies. Grazing, logging, hunting, motorized trail use, snowmobiles, cross country skiing, and hiking are all permitted uses. This report describes the rim between Garita Gate and Indios Pass. Most of the rim here is above 10,000 feet.
Access: Forest Road 144 is rarely far from the north rim. However, there are few good places that can be called good access points. The Forest Service did not bother to put signs along this road. The side road to the viewpoint is not marked, and there are a number of other unmarked roads to cause confusion. This whole area is rather a cross-country hiking experience (but really great when the aspens turn golden.). Be sure to take the GPS coordinates of your vehicle so you can find your way back.
Description: Forest Road 144 runs east/west along the north boundary of the VCNP. The road lies north of and mostly below the rim itself, although the road runs directly along the rim for a few stretches. Heavy forest intervenes between road and rim. There are few views into the caldera from the road. Conversely, road traffic does not disturb the ambiance of the rim. Much of the area was heavily logged in the past. Logging roads lace the area; some are as wide as a two-lane road. Loggers also cleared large swaths of land that now are filled with shrubs and stumps. The remaining forest is otherwise very dense; it is primarily spruce with some fir. Game trails run between the logging roads.
The country is more open north of FR144, in part because of the logging. It is a mosaic of logged tracts, dense forests, and natural meadows. Views sweeping down to the north—to Polvadera Peak and Cerro Pedernal, and north into Colorado—make a trip on FR144 worthwhile in itself. FR144 is a seasonal road, closed during snowy winters.
The north rim of the Valles Caldera west of Indios Pass consists of massive, thick and pasty Tschicoma Formation lava flows that form dome-like hills. Even so, Tschicoma flows can hold very steep slopes, like the walls of Santa Clara Canyon. Parts of the older andesitic Paliza Formation intrude along this section of the rim line. The boundary of the two formations lies right at the ridgeline. Both flows produced very hard rocks not easily eroded.
This section includes Hunters’ Point, whose south face is a grassy meadow steeply descending 500 feet into the caldera. To say that the views are quite fine is rather an understatement. Photographs of panoramic views from this grassy area. have become emblematic of the Valles Caldera.
Hunters’ Point ridge on skyline, center. The Forest Service view point is on the east (right) side of the grassland.
Cerro de la Garita to left.
In 1966, owners of the Baca Location No. 1 and the Forest Service completed a land sale that relocated the Baca boundary. The new boundary fence appears to closely follow the actual rim; the purchase may have been intended as a watershed divide. The fence crosses very wide logging roads that cut throughout the area, implying that logging preceded the fence. The grassland section of the rim includes part of the relocated boundary; however the very top of the rim and the grassy slope are on the VCNP. At this time, they are closed to unrestricted access.
The Garita Gate lies just west of the grassy triangular area visible from pull-out points on State Road 4 along the Valle Grande. It lies on the north rim of the caldera, so the view from the paved highway is looking across the entire caldera.
Some people call this ridge Garita; however, USGS topographic maps name the hills west of this point Cerro de la Garita. The ridge is separated from the Cerro de la Garita complex by a deep and rugged draw. The word means “sentry or watchman’s booth.” The Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish (wonderful book!) has a word garritas, meaning rags in the sense of the things one takes on a visit to a primitive place—the beach or mountains. The name Hunters’ Point appears on an obscure Forest Service map. It may refer only to the Forest section at the very east end of the grassy ridge.
The grassy point is a narrow hillock less than half a mile long oriented east/west. The VCNP owns the top of the ridge and the south-facing side. The south grassland descends steeply down into the caldera. A road comes up the grassy face from the Valle San Antonio to a gate on the rim and onto FR144. For lack of a better term, I call this Garita Gate. When the Forest Service managed the VCNP, employees from Española often drove home from the caldera this way. For a time, the VCNP recreation program offered hikes up the road for a fee, however VCNP funding seems not to support hikes here every season. At present, the Preserve is closed to general access pending environmental studies and appropriate planning documents. The north side of the hillock has a rather gentle slope. A dense spruce forest lines the very top of the hillock and extends down the north slope. It is riddled with logging roads.
Part of the 1966 Forest Service land purchase included a viewpoint at the east end of the ridge. This point is open to the public, accessible by two rough roads from FR144. Few trees get in the way, so views into the caldera, of course, are spectacular.
 
Valle San Antonio with Redondo peak on horizon. View of Toledo.
 
Abandoned logging roads riddle the area. East rim from Forest viewpoint.
The Forest Service administers the lookout point and all of the rim east to Indios Pass, with no restrictions on access. The area is open for hunting—deer and elk in the autumn—and is heavily used then, with hunting campsites along the road. (Sadly, this is the best time of year for aspen colors.) The New Mexico Game and Fish Department does prohibit hunting on certain days during the season. At other times of year, FR 144 has little traffic. It does have grazing allotments so there are cattle.
Chihuahueños, a large canyon that drains north, backs up to his stretch of the rim. It becomes quite convoluted around several headwater draws. Consequently, FR144 has to wind around the lumpy hills. The east-most tributary is labeled Cañada de la Mora. The rim crosses a narrow pass between Mora and an unnamed west tributary of the Rito de los Indios in the caldera. The pass is 200 very steep feet below the level mesas, forcing FR 144 into a convoluted route across it in order to maintain a reasonable grade. However, hikers can cross relatively easily on short trails, one quite steep.
East of the Chihuahueños hillocks, the rim becomes quite subtle and the road actually travels along it for a stretch. Farther east, a rather pleasant path runs right along most of the rim on the edge of the canyon, sometimes in forest, sometimes on grassland, sometimes through little meadows surrounded by forest. It is a pleasant walk, sloping only slightly uphill to the east, with no lumpy hills to climb. It doesn’t seem to have many cows and does have openings in the forest through which to view the valles. This hike is included in the Salzman’s book, Hiking Adventures in Northern New Mexico.
At a point just west of its junction with FR 27, FR 144 comes very close to the rim. Several hunting camps are right at the edge, with fine views into the caldera. Here, within a mile of the Chihuahueños breaks, the rim must cross 700 foot deep Rito de los Indios/Santa Clara Canyon. A cow path angles down the steep slope into the canyon. This is an old route, with carvings on the aspens dating to the 1950s. This is a dead end hike requiring a return climb out of the canyon.
 
The trail along the rim is a well-defined path East down Santa Clara Canyon from the path.
On the canyon floor is a large pasture with a line camp, corrals, and grazing cattle in season. A road comes up Santa Clara Canyon, but it is kept closed by Santa Clara Pueblo, which owns most of the canyon all the way to its confluence with the Rio Grande. The Valles Caldera Rim itself crosses the canyon in a clump of trees west (right) of the pasture. The pass between the two canyons is barely discernable as a low rise. The road continues down the Rito de los Indios to a gate at the VNCP boundary. The rim climbs the densely wood slope approximately 100 feet above the pass to the VNCP/Santa Clara boundary. Above that elevation, Santa Clara owns the mountain east of the rim; their boundary is posted against trespass. The VCNP owns the west slope, but has an easement agreement with Santa Clara restricting access.
 
Canyon of the Rito de los Indios; rim at left. Santa Clara. The rim at Indios Pass, looking west.
Pueblo has a restrictive easement on most of the slope.
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