VALLES CALDERA NATIONAL PRESERVE — Jorge Silva-Bañuelos fell in love the moment he turned the corner on N.M. 4 and first laid eyes on the wide expanse of this nearly 89,000-acre jewel of Northern New Mexico.
The breathtaking experience, almost two decades ago, felt like he was seeing another country — if not another planet. "Having grown up in New Mexico my entire life, this was just such a unique landscape that it really captured me," said Silva-Bañuelos, now superintendent of the preserve. "What then kind of enriched the scenic beauty here was really understanding and appreciating the deep cultural and human history of this place," he said.
"This has been drawing people for, you know, 11,000 years or more, and so I think there's some type of gravitational pull to this place." But even the force of gravity was no match for the barbed wire fence that kept most people out of what was privately owned property for more than a century, until the federal government purchased the land and established it as a preserve in 2000. Even then, public access was limited.
Silva-Bañuelos, however, has grand plans for this grand place — with a focus on making the Valles Caldera more accessible to the public, a dramatic shift in the evolution of an expansive piece of land that was once strictly off limits. "One of our main goals not only is to preserve and protect and restore this landscape, but it's really to share it with others," he said Thursday at the start of a daylong press .