Valles Caldera National Preserve Backcountry Vehicle Timed Entry

Timed entry for driving the backcountry roads of Valles Caldera National Preserve near Jemez Springs, New Mexico, a National Park Service preserve. The preserve is grassland country: broad, treeless valley floors running up to low forested hills, with narrow streams winding across the flats and shallow water standing in the lower ground. Conifer stands climb the slopes, some of the timber bare and gray. The photos show the grass both tawny under heavy cloud, with patches of yellow along the hillsides, and green with a creek cutting through meadow below a timbered ridge. The road in view is unpaved — a rutted dirt track at the edge of the grass, with puddles standing in the ruts.