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Indios Pass to Cerro Rubio. Red = rim. This is the boundary between the Valles Caldera National Preserve and the Pueblo of Santa Clara. There is an easement along the rim prohibiting access.
Valles Caldera East Rim
Indios Pass to Cerro Rubio
Introduction: This set of reports of the rim of the Valles Caldera is divided into linear sections anchored at each end by public vehicular access points. The northeast corner is of the rim is the exception; there is no public access road to Cerro Rubio. The rim between Cerro Rubio and Santa Clara Canyon is the boundary between the Valles Caldera National Preserve, (VCNP) and Santa Clara Pueblo. This section is fenced and posted against all entry. The Forest Service owns the very top of Santa Clara Canyon and the Rito de los Indios. It is pasture for cattle grazing.
Access: The VCNP is closed to unregulated hiking as well as public vehicular use. The only public access is by getting an elk hunting permit and asking for Unit 11. Forest Road 144 comes within 100 feet of the top of the Indios cow path.
Description: At the northeast corner of the rim, the Sierra de Toledo is an intrusive line of rhyolite domes that formed this lumpy ridge in the half-million years between the Toledo eruption and the Valles eruption. Rhyolite is derived from molten magma as opposed to rhyolite tuff, which forms from volcanic ash suspended in hot volcanic gasses. The thick, pasty rhyolite lava piled into steep-sided lumpy knolls that are rather flat on top. In contrast, Cerro Rubio is part of the Tschicoma Formation that predates both eruptions. Both base rocks are hard volcanic flows that resist softening by erosion but form rugged terrain and large fields of broken rock rubble. This entire northeast corner is above 10,000 feet.
Before the U.S. Government obtained the Baca Location No. 1, the owners entered into an easement agreement with the Pueblo of Santa Clara. The easement extends from the rim for 1000 to 3000 feet down the slopes into the caldera and has been posted against all access. Aerial photos of the area show an unbelievable array of logging roads across the entire ridge. What little exploration has been done in this area indicates that a connection “rim” trail across the section going low into the caldera below the easement is feasible.
At the very northeast corner of the rim, it crosses 700-foot deep Santa Clara Canyon. A small stretch of canyon is outside the old Baca Location No. 1 boundary. It belongs to the U.S. Forest Service rather than being transferred to Santa Clara Pueblo. The rim passes over the almost imperceptible divide between Santa Clara Canyon and the canyon of the Rito de los Indios. The Forest Service has permitee cattle grazing here. There is a line camp and several corrals. A road comes up the canyons and through the pass. Santa Clara Pueblo owns the remainder of Santa Clara Canyon to its confluence with the Rio Grande.
A cow path climbs the north canyon rim, which is also the caldera rim, to Forest Road 144.
Rito de los Indios; ridge of the rim at left. Redondo Peak beyond .
 
Indios Pass, looking east Line camp and corrals in Santa Clara Canyon.
This area is steep and wild. Now the challenge is to connect Cerro Rubio with Indios Pass without intruding on the Santa Clara easement, which is 3,000 feet wide on the rim above the Rito de los Indios.
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