Valles Caldera National Preserve

National Preserve, Established 2000 And Managed By The National Park Service Since 2015; A 13.7 Mile Wide Volcanic Caldera At 8,000 To 11,250 Feet, Formerly The Baca Ranch · Jemez Springs, New Mexico

About 1.25 million years ago a volcano here emptied itself and collapsed, leaving a bowl 13.7 miles across ringed by the peaks of its own rim. The floor is a vast grassland called the Valle Grande, broken by resurgent domes that rose after the collapse, and it looks less like a park than like somewhere the scale has gone wrong. It was the Baca Ranch for a century and a half, ran cattle and logged timber, and was bought into public ownership in 2000; the National Park Service took it over in 2015 and it is still a preserve rather than a park, which means hunting and grazing continue alongside the visitors. One of the largest elk herds in the state lives here and is visible from the highway at dawn and dusk. Access into the interior is deliberately limited by a daily vehicle permit, so most people see it from the rim road or walk in from one of the trailheads on NM 4. It is a preserve and not a park, so grazing and elk hunting continue around the visitors, and the roads shut for both.

39201 NM Highway 4, Jemez Springs, Jemez Springs, New Mexico, 87025, United States

The entrance station and the front-country trails off NM Highway 4 are open daily in daylight hours, year round, weather permitting. Backcountry vehicle access along the preserve roads is limited to a set number of permits per day, issued in advance and sometimes on the morning, and the roads close in winter and in wet conditions. The visitor contact station keeps shorter hours. Elk hunts close sections in autumn.

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