Valles Caldera extends its hours so visitors can enjoy the dark night skies

With elk bugling and dark, clear skies above, Valles Caldera is a beautiful place for stargazing. Most days the relatively young national preserve closes at 5 p.m., but through Sunday, Valles Caldera will be open 9 a.m. until 10 p.m. as part of its second Fall Fiesta.

“If it’s a nice, clear night, you can even get a glimpse of the entire Milky Way stretching from horizon to horizon,” said Chief of Interpretation, Education and Volunteers Dave Krueger.

Valles Caldera is an International Dark Sky park, which means that the night sky is not affected by light pollution. That gives visitors an opportunity to see what the night sky is like without lights washing out the stars and nebulae above.

As part of the Fall Fiesta, volunteers Stan Ford and Richard Gonzales hosted an astrophotography workshop at the park on Monday. With the dark skies above and the aid of a camera, during the workshop Ford was able to capture the Northern Lights, a bright haze of red overlaying pinpricks of white light.

The Northern Lights are not visible to the naked eye at Valles Caldera at present, but with the right photography equipment they can be found, according to Krueger. Earlier in the summer, the Northern Lights were visible across northern New Mexico, but usually from Valles Caldera a camera is needed to make the light waves visible.

A volcanic cauldron-like hollow in the Jemez Mountains, Valles Caldera was private land for 150 years. In 2000, Congress purchased the land, and almost a decade ago, Valles Caldera became a national preserve.

The Fall Fiesta is timed to line up with the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque so that visitors will have another way to enjoy New Mexico’s beauty while they visit the Land of Enchantment. The park service is also trying to get the word out that Valles Caldera is everyone’s park to enjoy, Krueger said.

“I think people either have heard of it and don’t know they can come in, or they haven’t heard of it yet. So we’re trying to get the word out that this is public space,” Krueger said.

The Fall Fiesta also includes guided ranger hikes and cultural demonstrations from artisans like Santa Clara Pueblo potter Madeline Naranjo and willow basket weaver Andrew Harvier of the Santa Clara and Taos pueblos and the Tohono O’odham Nation.