Two days in the Valles

This week I spent Wednesday and Thursday up in the Valles Caldera with my advisor. We deployed a few more temperature probes and did some sampling. Mostly we got to hike up a streambed in 1-2 feet of snow with snowshoes strapped to our feet!


I have discovered that my old gaiters do not work all that well. The backs did not stay on my boots, instead resting on my socks, which allowed snow to get into my boots. My feet were therefore damn cold by the end of the first day. Eventually I thawed out. Check out the windblown snow we saw about halfway up:


The second day we hurried up the catchment and did some more sampling up at the top. It was a productive couple of days, and we brainstormed some good ideas for furthering my research. Hopefully things really get moving this winter! I'll hopefully be spending much of the spring (post-snowmelt) up in the Valles.

The Valles Caldera

Gather 'round, children, and I will rap at you about my field area (provided my research ever gets off the ground). Most of you have never been there, but it is like hella beautiful. I'll stick a bunch of pictures at the end for your ocular pleasure. The Valles Caldera National Preserve was formerly a ranch held by the ubiquitous (in New Mexico anyway) Baca family. In 2000 the gummint bought it, and it is now semi-open public land.
The Valles is a caldera that formed 1.5-1.1 million years ago as the result of massive eruptions (600 cubic kilometers) from the magma chamber beneath. See below for an aerial photograph (hard to decipher, I know) of the caldera. The roundish feature is the rim of the caldera, and all the flat-looking areas within are meadows. The mountains in the middle of the caldera are the resurgent dome, which the link above talks about.

I've now been here a number of times, and I just can't get over how beautiful it is, especially with a little snow blanket on it. Enjoy some pictures below; hopefully, I'll soon have some more current ones from the upcoming months!




Oh, I have more at home from non-winter. Maybe I'll put some up later.