Gus Smith, 2, of Los Alamos celebrates after making a tiny snowman at Valles Caldera National Preserve during the first-ever Winter Fest on Saturday. The event, meant to entice children to the park to teach them about its history, featured hot cocoa and snowshoe and ski routes.
Ezra Stein, 7, of Albuquerque places the head on a large snowman at Valles Caldera National Preserve during Saturday’s Winter Fest event. After completing the structure, Ezra said the best part of the winter is “building snowmen and hot cocoa!” before flopping on his stomach from the effort.
Daniel Stein of Albuquerque lifts up his daughter Mira Stein, 4, so she can install the nose on her brother’s snowman at Valles Caldera National Preserve during Saturday’s event. Mira Stein’s grandmother, Vani Aran, said the site is still not well-known. “It’s never too busy here,” Aran said. “You can always get here and get away from people, which is what I like.”
Freya Curtin, 8, of Santa Fe make s’mores at Valles Caldera National Preserve as part of Saturday's Winter Fest event. The event was aimed at getting more youth to visit the site year-round. “The hopes of Winter Fest was of course ... that they can learn to fall in love with winter and also gain an appreciation for Valles Caldera as a whole, so we can continue to preserve and protect the area,” one official said.
Greg Foster and his wife, Maria Foster, hit the forest trails on their snowshoes at Valles Caldera National Preserve during Saturday’s Winter Fest event. Park officials are trying to keep attendance up after huge spikes in 2021 and 2023. Exploring the park is free year-round.
Gus Smith, 2, of Los Alamos celebrates after making a tiny snowman at Valles Caldera National Preserve during the first-ever Winter Fest on Saturday. The event, meant to entice children to the park to teach them about its history, featured hot cocoa and snowshoe and ski routes.
Greg Foster and his wife, Maria Foster, hit the forest trails on their snowshoes at Valles Caldera National Preserve during Saturday’s Winter Fest event. Park officials are trying to keep attendance up after huge spikes in 2021 and 2023. Exploring the park is free year-round.
VALLES CALDERA — A love for the outdoors has run through at least four generations of Valli Aran’s family.
It may have started with her adventurous father, who most memorably packed up his family for a summer road trip from California all the way to the Arctic Circle decades ago, when Aran was a teen.
On Saturday, Aran joined her children and grandchildren for a trip from their home in Albuquerque to Valles Caldera National Preserve, in the Jemez Mountains, for the nature preserve’s first-ever Winter Fest. The event — which is planned to continue in future years — was intended to entice young visitors to the site in the winter months and to boost its profile as a whole.
A few dozen children and adults filtered through Valles Caldera Ranger Station to drink hot chocolate, set off on snowshoe or cross-country ski routes, make paper snowflakes, build snow creatures and learn about the park.
Aran’s 7-year-old grandson, Ezra Stein, threw himself into making a larger-than-life-size snowman, with the help of a few adults and 6 inches of fresh powder from a Friday snowstorm.
The best part of winter, he announced, flopping on his stomach from the effort, is “building snowmen and hot cocoa!”
Ezra Stein, 7, of Albuquerque places the head on a large snowman at Valles Caldera National Preserve during Saturday’s Winter Fest event. After completing the structure, Ezra said the best part of the winter is “building snowmen and hot cocoa!” before flopping on his stomach from the effort.
Adults cited the open vistas and thriving wildlife as the most thrilling aspects of the preserve.
“The best part is when you see a coyote or some foxes or, you know, if you’re biking out someplace and a group of elk come roaring across [the trail], that’s just very cool to be out in the wild with them,” Los Alamos resident Pam Erickson said, returning from a morning ski across the preserve.
In the fall, during the elk rut — or mating season — visitors to the caldera can sit at tree line to listen to bulls bugle and sometimes watch them fight, added fellow skier Margie Stockton.
On Saturday, visitors ogled at coyotes visible from the road and several hundred elk grazing in the distance, a herd that recently returned to the caldera from lower elevations, volunteer Bill Sayre said.
Meanwhile, outside the ranger station, Ranger Melanie Portillo read a book about how animals from butterflies to bears survive the winter to an audience of younger kids decked out in colorful snowsuits and hats.
Daniel Stein of Albuquerque lifts up his daughter Mira Stein, 4, so she can install the nose on her brother’s snowman at Valles Caldera National Preserve during Saturday’s event. Mira Stein’s grandmother, Vani Aran, said the site is still not well-known. “It’s never too busy here,” Aran said. “You can always get here and get away from people, which is what I like.”
Rangers put on the Winter Fest to entice more kids and families to explore the caldera during the winter, Portillo said.
“The hopes of Winter Fest was of course ... that they can learn to fall in love with winter and also gain an appreciation for Valles Caldera as a whole, so we can continue to preserve and protect the area,” she said.
Vani Aran described the caldera as a hidden gem.
“I still feel like it’s not very well known. It’s never too busy here,” she said. “You can always get here and get away from people, which is what I like.”
Freya Curtin, 8, of Santa Fe make s’mores at Valles Caldera National Preserve as part of Saturday's Winter Fest event. The event was aimed at getting more youth to visit the site year-round. “The hopes of Winter Fest was of course ... that they can learn to fall in love with winter and also gain an appreciation for Valles Caldera as a whole, so we can continue to preserve and protect the area,” one official said.
Dave Krueger, a National Park Service spokesman, said the park saw a “huge spike” in visitation in 2021, following the coronavirus pandemic, receiving over 76,500 visits. Visitation in 2023 was roughly the same, at about 76,100 visits.
Exploring the park is also free year-round. Fees were instituted for a few years after the land became a National Park Service unit in 2014 but have since been suspended because rangers found the fees were turning visitors away, Krueger said.
“We wanted people to experience this place,” he added.
Valles Caldera leaders are currently in a planning phase to figure out whether and how much to expand the visitor experience in the park, he said. They expect to complete the park’s General Management Plan in 2025.
