The La Garita hike in the Valles Caldera National Preserve route starts out following the road along San Antonio Creek, a beautiful trout stream that meanders across the grassland floor of the Valle Toledo. There is infrequent motorized vehicle use of this fairly flat stretch of road. There is a sharp left onto an old logging road, a non-motorized route, and the ascent begins.
The route winds up through dense forest, eventually reaching a steep traverse across an open meadow up to an open gate. The route flattens out at this point, eventually reaching a closed gate at the Preserve boundary fence. A foot trail leads along the fence line for a stretch, behind the high point of the ridge. You eventually reach an old logging road that cuts diagonally to the right up and over the crest of the ridge. At that point, I felt on top of the world with huge views opening up to the South.
The hike on La Garita trail is a bit of a misnomer, in that it does not climb Cerro La Garita but instead ascends to a meadow on a high ridge offering spectacular views of much of the Valles Caldera in the Jemez Mountains. The ridge is part of the North rim of the Caldera, one of North America’s three super volcanoes.
This was a 10.7-mile (17.3 km) round-trip hike from my van drop-off/pickup point. The hike starts at about 8,500 feet (2,592 m) and has a total ascent of 1,900 feet (580 m). The maximum elevation is 10,340 feet (3153 m). I would classify this as a moderate-to-difficult hike given the combination of ascent and altitude, but there is nothing technical about it.
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