Bikepacking the Valles Caldera, New Mexico: A 2-Day Gravel Loop
Everything I learned bikepacking a volcanic crater in the Jemez Mountains early in the season.
Yes! You can bikepack at 9,000 feet in April!
Yes! You might question your choices for a few hours in the insanely cold morning! Not to worry. You can soak in the hot springs to warm up.
Let me introduce you to the Valles Caldera.
Northern New Mexico had an incredibly dry winter in 2025-2026. This route, which is usually snowbound this time of year, was open and ready for this adventurer to kick off the season with a volcanic eruption (from 1.25 million years ago)!
This is a 2-day, 52-mile gravel loop with about 3,600 feet of elevation, through a supervolcano, to a natural hot spring at the end of day one, and one gate (and possibly a bonus gate) you may need to slide your bike under. It is, to be clear, one of the most beautiful rides I’ve ever done. It’s also cold enough in the shoulder seasons that I questioned my life choices while shivering in the freezing cold morning on day 2.
Where Exactly is the Valles Caldera?
The Valles Caldera is in the Jemez Mountains in north-central New Mexico, about 90 minute drive northwest of Santa Fe and roughly 30 minutes from Los Alamos. It’s a National Preserve, which means it’s federally managed and has posted hours.
For context: this is the collapsed caldera of a supervolcano that erupted about 1.25 million years ago. The floor of the crater is a rolling green basin ringed by forested peaks. Elk tracks, prairie dogs, coyotes, foxes, volcanic rock underfoot. This place was unlike anywhere I’d ever been. Also, since it was April, once I got past the entrance and off the main roads it was just me and the foxes. And the prairie dogs.
Where Can You Bikepack in the Valles Caldera?
The short answer: the gravel roads in and around the Caldera, plus the Santa Fe National Forest land that surrounds the preserve.
The twist is where you sleep: the Caldera has gated entrances with posted hours. Camping is not allowed inside the preserve itself — you’ll need to camp on adjacent National Forest land. This matters for planning, but is easy to manage. So: plan to ride the Caldera during its open hours, and plan to sleep just outside it.
The Route: Valles Caldera 2-Day Loop
I like to keep my bikepacking routes more chill than others you see out there. For one, I like to stop and take lots of pictures. Secondly, I like to maximize enjoyment. If I need to stop mid-climb for a nap so be it.
Here are the stats for the route I rode, which includes a few miles of backtracking I had to do when I got to Valles Toledo. The road is closed there, which I’ve marked on the map. Turning around to backtrack into the headwind that used to be my tailwind was... fun. It’s a beautiful side quest if you’re looking to add about 7 miles.
Day 1: 30.0 mi / +2,148 ft
Day 2: 22.8 mi / +1,572 ft
Total: 52.3 mi / +3,650 ft
Parking
Quick note on parking: It’s fine to park your car in Santa Fe National Forest. I found a forest road near the entrance to the Caldera and parked there. Here’s a link to exactly where I parked. Make sure not to block the road.
Day 1: Into the Caldera
The entrance greets you with a long, gorgeous gravel descent. The kind of descent that you enjoy for about forty seconds before remembering, with real dread, that this is an out-and-back and you will be climbing this later. Try not to think about it.
The riding is wonderful and the excitement of kicking off an adventure fueled me for the next 11 miles until I hit the first decision point, which ventured OFF the nice gravel and into more gnarly territory…
This is where you’ll have a decision to make: Do you, and your legs, have a climb in you? Can your bike handle chunky, potentially muddy, rooty terrain? If so, welcome to VC03.
You’re in for what I can only describe as fantasy terrain. I’ve never ridden anything like it. At times it felt like I was riding through a nicely manicured lawn. Only to encounter tough, chunky areas. I only saw a smidgen of snow at the tippy-top of the climb.
My Cutty, with its brand spankin’ new 2.35 Mezcal tires, handled everything wonderfully. I ran a decently low pressure, which helped dampen the terrain, too. I highly suggest running lower pressure for much of the route, if your bike has the tires for it.
I may have been lucky as this area is known for blown down trees blocking the path, but it was wonderfully cared for. Shout out to the Valles Caldera park staff! It also hadn’t rained in a while so what was probably usually mud was dry and hardened, making it not-miserable. I only had to navigate around a couple of fallen trees. No biggie.
Is the climb bad? Honestly, no. But I walked a couple of steeper segments because I was tired and wanted to keep my heart rate in zone 2 territory. That’s a fine thing to do. Nobody cares. There’s no one there.
Well, actually, the prairie dogs watched me judgingly. If they do this to you feel free to shout “Stop judging me you dogs of prairie!” It helps. I had to explain to them that I am a sea-land dweller, after all. “Not all of us have been here long enough to develop elevated levels of 2,3-Bisphosphoglycerate”!
[this is where a picture of a judging prairie dog would go if they didn’t scurry into their burrows every time I tried to take a picture of them]
A word on the posted hours: I exited the main entrance about an hour past posted hours because I got a late start (as is tradition) and because the climb was the climb. Exiting the park a little late was a non-event. No rangers. No one yelling at me. No armed guards. The only thing I had to do was slide my bike under the gate.
(The west entrance, in my experience, looked practically abandoned. There’s no guard tower or armed battalion waiting for you.)
The Hot Springs Detour
After you exit the Caldera at the end of day one, you’re going to ride down toward San Antonio Hot Springs. If you have, like me, done just enough research to know the springs exist but not enough to know where they actually are, here is what you need to know:
As you ride toward the hot springs you’ll encounter a gate. You pass the gate. Shortly after, there’s a turnoff on the left that drops down to San Antonio Creek. That is not the hot spring. You have to cross the wooden bridge. After the bridge, ditch your bike behind a rock and climb up. The springs are up there.
If you arrive in the evening or morning, especially in the spring when the road vehicles would use to get there is still closed, you'll see few, if any, people. I only saw two others while I soaked.
Just a heads up: There will probably be naked people there.
Where to Camp
You have two strategies for camping on night one.
Strategy A: Camp near the Caldera entrance.
Pro: easy start in the morning, you don’t have to climb back up to this entrance.
Con: You are further from the hot springs. If you plan to go in the morning, might as well camp closer to them.
Strategy B: Camp closer to the hot springs.
Pro: short ride to soaking in the morning, which is a borderline religious experience. Especially if your morning is insanely cold, like mine was (read on…).
Con: you add distance and climbing to day two, and if it’s cold — more on that in a second — you will deeply regret having to leave your tent before 10am. Note: you can’t camp at the hot springs. The area is closed dusk to dawn.
I did Strategy B. I would do it again.
I saw several other bike campers along this stretch, which was reassuring after a day with just me and the prairie dogs. Flat spots are plentiful in either direction. Hang your food so you don’t get a bear visit.
Day 2: The Coldest Morning of My Life
Here is a thing about New Mexico in early April that the internet will warn you about, but you will not be prepared for: the high-desert nights get into the teens. I knew this intellectually. I did not know this in my fingers and toes.
I tried to get going early. My fingers and toes rebelled. I ended up building a fire at camp — which I don’t normally do in the morning, because the morning is for coffee and packing — just to warm my hands enough to roll up a sleeping bag. By the time I was moving, the sun was up and it was about 10am. I was still cold. It wasn’t until I went back down to the hot springs and soaked for an hour that I truly had a body again.
The good news: by noon, it was pleasant. By afternoon, I’d forgotten about the morning. Actually, that’s a lie. Any slight chill in the air for the next couple of days sent my body into fight-or-flight mode.
The back half of the loop is mostly rolling gravel with some sandy sections mixed in. The variety of terrain you encounter here is surprising so I really think only 2.2 inch tires or more will do. You will cross your own tracks from the day before. You will wonder if it really happened because it looks so different heading the other direction.
Side note: Out-and-backs get a bad rap. And I’m here to defend them. They are not “the same trail twice”. You take that back! They are a completely different experience each way.
Again, because of my late start (tradition), AND the unexpected backtracking, I exited the park later than the posted hours. It was no big deal. I just had to hop over the entrance gate.
Gear Notes
Tires. You can ride parts of this route on a 40–50mm gravel tire but you will have a bad time on the rougher sections. I ran 2.35-inch tires at low pressure and it was perfect. My recommendation is 2.2 inches at a minimum. The terrain varies from buttery gravel to loose volcanic rock to the occasional wheel-swallowing rut or swooshy sand. A wider tire is a more forgiving tire.
Sleep system. Whatever you think you need, add 10 degrees of margin. In April, I had a 10°F bag, slept in all the layers I brought, and was still cold.
Layers. Something for teens-at-dawn. Something for sixties-at-noon. The swing is real and you cannot wish your way out of it.
Water. Bring a water filter. This was my first trip relying entirely on filtered water. Apparently, as pointed out by a friend, you’re not supposed to filter hot spring water for drinking. It can have heavy metals that won’t be filtered out. Guess I have arsenic poisoning. Was nice knowing you all.
Food storage. I hung my food. I didn't see other campers doing that, but I have no bear stories to share and I’d like to keep it that way. The wildlife I did see — prairie dogs, coyotes, a fox — were chill about my existence albeit judgey at times.
Bring your ID: I needed it to pass security checkpoints from Los Alamos. Presumably because of scary lab stuff?
When to Go
Late spring through early fall is the sweet spot. April is possible (you’re reading proof) but, as I’ve now reminded you multiple times, it is cold at night. June through September is more forgiving, though summer monsoons are real, so plan around afternoon thunderstorms. The Caldera is a big open basin; you do not want to be exposed up there when weather rolls in.
Check the preserve’s posted hours before you go. They change seasonally.
Quick Shoutout
Not only was the blowdown cleared, but a friendly park ranger helped me jump my beater truck after I left the lights on for JUST 20 MINUTES to take pictures. COME ON, BEATER TRUCK. DO BETTER. Anyway, THANK YOU VALLES CALDERA STAFF!
Have you bikepacked the Valles Caldera? Are you planning to? Drop me a comment. I want to hear how you did it, and I especially want to hear from people who ran narrower tires than I did and lived to tell about it.
If you liked this, you might also like my post on 5 Bikepacking Routes in Big Sur, California. Subscribe for more trip reports, route research, and gear thoughts from a person who probably should have just stayed home where it was warm.
As a NNM local, you nailed all of it, especially the secret freezing cold at 9,000’ in April. “Rock" as a caption really sent me into outer space.
Dude, excellent write-up! Not too far from AZ, so I'll definitely put this one on the list!