"Benediction" by Melissa Fu

A view across Valle Grande toward Valles Caldera's south rim.

NPS/Irene Owsley

What has it meant, this month of mountains and memories?

For me, the Jemez Mountains are still a place of escape, of release, of perspective, of higher ground. Their call is undiluted, as potent as ever. I love this landscape without reservation. I am more certain than ever that this is where I find myself, this is where I return to a deep sense of belonging, of wholeness. I was elated to discover that, even after decades away, I could put my feet down and find I still have roots here. I could wiggle my toes and stretch towards my soul’s headwaters.

This is the place that keeps my wilder heart.

And Valles Caldera? What a joy to hike new paths on old hills! My time has enlarged my understanding of the collection of valles and cerros that comprise Valles Caldera. Even though I’ve only just begun to walk the trails of Valles Caldera, their presence has been beckoning my whole life. After a glorious three weeks, I long to listen and watch and experience more, to spend a turn of the seasons under its skies.

Highlights: time in Los Alamos with childhood friends and beloved teachers, meals with neighbors who I’ve known for decades, lunch at Rancho de Chimayo with four of my mother’s dearest friends, my brother’s weekend visit, conducting workshops at Valles Caldera and Los Alamos High School, meeting the previous artist-in-residence, days with the Fire Ecology and Botany Crews, hiking South Mountain and La Garita with rangers, all the bike rides, all the hikes, my circuits around Cerro La Jara. All of it, all of it. Every last sunrise, sunset, and solo wander.

"La Garita Slope," an original painting by artist-in-residence Rachel Black (2024).

NPS/Rachel Black

Did I find what I was looking for?

I’ve had the extended, focused time in the mountains I have missed and dreamed of for years. But the time has also shown me who I am away from the mountains. I am of the mountains but not always in them. Like obsidian from Cerro del Medio, I bear the fingerprint of the Jemez in all that I do. But, like the much of the obsidian, I, too, have travelled far from my point of origin.

If I’m honest, really honest, not slightly drunk on high mountain air, heady from the shimmer of aspens and the bugling of elk, I acknowledge that I am not here to stay. I come back, but I don’t stay. This month has been both glorious and sobering. It has been a deep homecoming and also a deeper farewell. A knowing that my everyday life and my choices are not here in the mountains of New Mexico, but in the fields and fens of East Anglia.

So as my final act of stewardship through storytelling, I turn to you. I want to thank you for following these trails and thoughts with me from my time in Valles Caldera. And now, I invite you to embrace your own wild places. I urge you. Go outside and find your place among the waters, soils, plants and animals that speak to your wilder heart. Nurture a land ethic that is lived and practiced amidst the land itself.

May you map your own personal geographies and populate your memory with story, with experience. May you wander trails with multiple stream crossings and triumphant vistas. May you shelter under a grove of blue spruce in a late afternoon monsoon. May you find your own Cerro La Jara and visit it in all weathers, seasons and times of the day, knowing that each time, the same path will lead you to different discoveries.