Valles Caldera West Rim
Forest Road 144—Upper San Antonio Canyon
Hot Springs Overlook to Twin Cabins Canyon Gate

Introduction:

Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF) owns the west rim of the Valles Caldera and manages it for multiple use: grazing, hunting, logging, motorized trail use, hiking, camping, wood-gathering, etc. At its northwestern end, the rim of the Valles Caldera is an undistinguished low series of lumpy hills covered with forest.  The caldera rim runs parallel to, and occasionally coincides with, the rim of the upper canyon of the Rio San Antonio.  A major forest resource road, Forest Road 144 (FR144), runs parallel to the canyon rim and the caldera rim.  FR144 is a dirt road, but well maintained and suitable for passenger cars for several miles.  FR144 gets rougher as it approaches the breaks of the Rio Cebolla.  The road goes around the northwest boundary of the Valles Caldera to Española, but a section of road is little more than a bed of rocks.  A motorcycle trail runs parallel to FR144.  The motorcyclists claim to have built the trail and keep it well maintained.

Owner: Santa Fe National Forest, Jemez District

Description:

Ash flow tuffs make up the west rim of the Valles Caldera.  These very liquid lava flows formed plateaus that surround the caldera.  This part of the rim is relatively level, but the broad level mesas extending off to the west are separated by deepening canyons that descend westward to the Rio Cebolla. The mesas are heavily wooded.  Logging roads diverge off the road toward the west.  Short stub roads also branch toward the rim of San Antonio Canyon, usually ending in a camping or picnic spot.

Long stretches of sheer cliff make up the 500-foot walls of upper San Antonio Canyon.  Several viewpoints along the rim look east into the caldera.  Redondo Peak and San Antonio Mountain rise above the canyon.  Redondo Peak, second highest point in the Jemez Mountains, is a resurgent dome of rhyolite that rose into the caldera; San Antonio Mountain is one of several so-called ring fracture volcanoes that subsequently erupted around the resurgent dome.  Both mountains block views into the eastern valles of the caldera.

Several viewpoints have truly spectacular views of Valle San Antonio and the small pass where the Rio San Antonio exits the grassland to enter the canyon.  Cliffs occasionally jut out a bit into the canyon, so some views extend south down canyon.

Forest covers much of the landscape along the canyon rim, although the headwaters of the western canyons are often broad, grassy swales.  It is a pleasant place.  We went once on Memorial Day when the informal campgrounds were full of people enjoying picnics in the woods.  Some had set up folding chairs right along the edge of the cliffs to admire the views.

     
View from the cliffs: Rio San Antonio, looking northeast                        Rio San Antonio exits the Valles Preserve at a narrow point
across Valle San Antonio to the east rim of the caldera.                         below the cliffs. 

The motorcycle trail does not follow the canyon rim here, but veers more closely to FR144.  For much of the canyon rim, there are only game trails or crude trails between campsites.  Several drainages break the canyon rim in this area, forcing detours away from the edge.  Most have no trails of any form, requiring a walk-around or a cross-country traverse of the little draws.  At one point, a line of cliffs rises above the mostly level rim, requiring a bit of a climb, but the views are well worth it.  This is cattle country and several allotment fences run perpendicular to the canyon rim.  Part of the forest was logged, leaving the area relatively open.  Some subsequent deadfall has accumulated, but for the most part hikers can easily maneuver along the canyon rim.

At the north end of San Antonio Canyon, a road once snaked down the steep wall into the canyon.  The road is closed to two-track vehicles, but open to motorcycles and hiking.  Fishermen hike down the road to fish in the Rio San Antonio.  Forest Road 376 accesses the canyon floor from State Road 126, but it is closed fairly late in the spring because of snow.  Fishermen use this road instead for access to the stream.

At the northern end of San Antonio Canyon, rhyolite tuff formed a highland, now eroded into a series of steep ridges with many cliffs.  These are the headwaters of Road Canyon that flow west to the Rio Cebolla.  The terrain is formidable enough that FR144 was routed west around the highland to the canyon of the Rio Cebolla.  The motorcycle trail leaves FR144 here and takes a shortcut north across the ridges, mostly following old logging roads.  Unfortunately, the hills are so steep that parts of the trail have become deeply eroded. 

Road Canyon drains from the caldera rim to the Rio Cebolla; a road once ran the length of the canyon.  It was historically the main route from the homesteads of the Cebolla area across the northern valles of the caldera to Santa Clara Canyon and down to Española.  In the 1950s, when Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) built a gas pipeline and road farther north, the Road Canyon route was abandoned.  The boundary of the Preserve cuts across Road Canyon Pass at the rim; it is fenced.  It is a shame because it is a lovely little area and an excellent place for a rim trail.

North of the cliffs of Road Canyon is PNM’s Pipeline Road.  The road traverses the northern valles of the Preserve, but is blocked by a locked gate at the boundary fence.  The motorcycle trail continues north.

Access: The junction of State Roads 4 and 126 is at the village of La Cueva.  From La Cueva, State Road 126 crosses the Rio San Antonio and immediately climbs the wall of the caldera.  Its junction with Forest Road 144 is on the north (right) about a mile beyond the rim.  FR144 runs around the west and north rims of the Valles Caldera to Española.  FR144 is suitable for passenger cars with a higher clearance for five miles or so along the west rim described here, but becomes VERY bad at the northwest corner of the preserve.  It is not a viable route to Española except for four-wheel-drive vehicles, preferably with a skid plate.

Northwest corner of the Valles Caldera along Forest Road 144.  Red = rim; purple = dirt road; blue = motorcycle trails.  There is no formal trail along the canyon rim in this area.

Dorothy Hoard   September 2008