Caldera Rim Trip Report Hunter’s Point

North Rim

Date: July 2, 2007 Purpose: Walk the actual rim to assess a route and acquire data on difficulty of building and maintaining a trail. Check out the view on Hunters point, probably the best along the rim. USGS Topographic Map: Cerro del Grant Participants: Dorothy Hoard, Yvonne Delamater, Ed Jacobson Equipment: Garmin Global Positioning System Model GPS 12; digital camera Olympus Camedia C-3000; notebooks. Methodology: I obtained a permit to enter Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) land, agreeing to give two weeks notice for proposed field trips, to write a final report, and keep a time list for their volunteer log. We then walk the rim as closely as possible while looking for better parallel routes and points of interest. Conclusions: In summary, Forest Road 144 runs just north of the Baca Location Boundary. The rim is generally a higher line and heavily wooded. FR 144 snakes through the draws north and below the rim, so rarely has a view into the caldera. However, in 1966, Dunigan sold a piece to the Forest Service so a public road could access the rim to provide a fine view. As expected, the view along Hunter’s Point is spectacular the entire way. A number of old logging roads break the tree line from the north. Some run along the top of the grass land, so walking is not difficult. The contour break for the rim runs up a tributary to the Rito de los Indios. It is heavily wooded with dense forest and deadfall. Cow paths and elk trails wander through the woods for a ways, but are not a purposeful path leading anywhere. The access road to the Forest viewpoint runs very near this part of the rim, but there is no view along it’s length. Trip Report: Introduction: The north rim of the Valles Caldera west of Indios Pass consists of massive Tschicoma Formation dacite-latite flows. Small lumpy hills cover the landscape. Many, such as Cerro Pelon and Cerro del Grant, were volcanic vents. Canyons have eroded into the rim structure from both the north and the south, so that they interfinger and make the actual rim somewhat hilly and quite irregular. The area is heavily forested and heavily logged, even on the 1966 purchase.

home to Española via the gate and FR 144 when they worked on the Preserve. The road we came in on was well used but ended at a large berm at the Preserve fence. A log had fallen on the fence, so it was easy to cross. We walked over to the Garita Gate, a big iron two bar locked gate. The road, VC 12, was well used, but I couldn’t see how it connected to 144. In fact I never found the actual road that went to the gate. We walked on the grassland along the forest edge at the top of Hunter’s Point. The point is a long, narrow, east-west ridge. The forest was dense, but not impenetrable and a trail could nicely follow the ridge line just inside the trees. (Walking through bunch grasses is not easy.) The view from Hunter’s Point is surely the best in the Jemez Mountains!

Description: We parked within 50 feet of the Garita Gate that provides access the Preserve from the north. I was told that Forest Service personnel would go

The road to Garita Gate.

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Walking was easier just inside the forest than in the grassland.

North Rim

The view from Hunters Point sweeps from Cerro Toledo on the east to San Antonio Mountain on the west.

Apparent recent two-track vehicle at logging road atop ridge

Abandoned logging roads cut the forest periodically along the ridge. In places it looked as though a double track vehicle had recently come through onto the grassland. There were signs that the roads once ran along the ridge, but these have reverted to grassland. The grassland is a typical Thurber fescue-Parry oatgrass meadow with some other grasses and a few forbs. The grasses were nicely green, reflecting the wet winter and spring; the field was full of blue butterflies. The meadow contours east to a point where a grassy ridge descends into the caldera. This point proved to be just above the Forest viewpoint, with the boundary

Elk trail in the grassland/forest interface.

Roads broke through the forest all along the Hunters Point Ridge 2

The fence line at the Forest Service viewpoint blocks the public from public land.

North Rim

fence between us. Continuing east, we crossed the VCNP fence onto Forest Service property for the rest of the trip. At the east end of the Forest viewpoint, a long canyon, apparently unnamed, descends from the rim to its confluence with the Rito de los Indios. The canyon has some meadows on its floor and a road or roads. The VCNP boundary fence descends the grassy slope for about 100 feet, then turns north on the side of this canyon. Ed followed the fence line; Yvonne and I followed cow paths at the rim. We went down a very steep slope to an abandoned logging road near the fence. This road soon ended at a large berm and we climbed out of the canyon.

At the 1996 survey corner where the fence returned to the original Baca Location boundary.

We went back to the Forest Service viewpoint where I had left my walking stick after lunch. Then we followed the fence line back to Garita Gate. The fence line clearing was very wide. Several logging roads crossed the fence to head over Hunter’s Point ridge. There were no gates along this route. The fence had been spliced together across the roads.

Ed following the fence line. This canyon joins the canyon of the Rito de los Indios.

We soon came to FR 144 at the junction of an access road to the viewpoint. Ed called that he found the corner of the fence where it joined the original Baca Location boundary. We scrambled down the steep slope. The bench mark at the corner reads USDA-FS T21NR4E Beg Cor AP1|PC Baca EXC LS 3093 1966

Gates had been spliced shut and posted, “Public Land, No Trespassing.”

Bearing Tree at the 1966 corner

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This fence line continued past Garita Gate and up the very steep, heavily wooded side of La Garita. We decided that the fence line was not a good route for a rim trail.

North Rim

Water collection devices near Hunters Point.

Boundary fences go on FOREVER!

We drove home via the NW corner of the Baca Location and Fenton Hill. FR 144 was quite good to FR99 junction and about one mile beyond. Then it became very rocky; I had to steer carefully to avoid scraping the underside of the Honda CR-V. The road improved at the junction of FR 144 with FR 315. Informant: Dorothy Hoard. Time - 8:00 to 5:00 total; 10:00 to 3:30 hiking.

Baca fence line with cut atop Cerro Garita on far horizon.

Hunters Point, July 2, 2007. Rim = red; Fr144 = purple; bright green = our route. Cerise line is 1966 boundary exchange. 4