Seven years ago on our first trip to Nee Mexico, we first saw the Valles Caldera. Looking down into it from an over look on Route 4, we could see that collapsed volcano magma chamber was huge.
This trip we drove down into it and discovered we had had only seen a small portion from above. Mountain peaks in the Caldera were formed by resurgant lava over a million years ago.
We hiked the Jaramillo Valley Trail which was supposed the ranger had said would be shaded. It was not. He also said it would be easy to jump on the trail from the valley parking area. After wandering in a field for a while we eventually did find the trail. This park could use better signage and maybe better ranger training.