"Obsidian Valley" by Melissa Fu

The trail into Obsidian Valley.

NPS

13 Sept – Morning e-bike ride to Obsidian Valley. I had forgotten how thrilling it is to ride a bike in the mountains. Nothing compares with the pure joy of coasting through patches of sun and shade, the scents of ponderosas, warm dust, and mountain sage in the air. As for the uphills? Well, thirty or so years ago, riding my bike from Los Alamos up to Valle Grande was a badge of honor that took me an entire summer to earn. But now, in my fifties, I’m more than happy to have a bit of pedal assist from the e-bike. I love the thought that this bike will take me farther and deeper into Valles Caldera than I might go on foot.

I turn off VC02, the main north-south artery in the preserve, and point the bike along VC05, an old logging road that winds through Obsidian Valley. As the ground speeds by, the path starts to glitter in the morning sun. Small bits of obsidian are scattered on the dirt and gravel. I smile to myself. I would expect nothing less from a place called Obsidian Valley.

The road winds between Cerro del Abrigo to the northwest and Cerro del Medio to the southeast. Following the trail, my gaze keeps drifting up to the burn scars left by the 2011 Las Conchas Fire. The fire, which started when a power line fell on an aspen tree on private land, ultimately burned 156,000 acres in the Jemez Mountains, 30,000 of which were on the eastern side of Valles Caldera. Nearly a third of the preserve was burned in this fire. The immense scar extends along the north-south length of the preserve, tracing the eastern rim of the caldera.

On my left, logging roads circle up to the top of Cerro del Abrigo. It looks painfully bald. To my right, on exposed northwest slopes of Cerro del Medio, I can see some late summer grasses, but there’s not much undergrowth. This mountain also looks bald. Both of these cerros were subject to clear-cutting in the 1960s and 1970s. Combined with a Forest Service policy of complete fire suppression, this meant that the second growth forest that sprung back over the following decades was homogenous and dense. It was perfect kindling for the Las Conchas fire. Having suffered from high intensity burns, the soil has been slow to heal. Thirteen years later, much of the land still appears barren, the snags and slash a fallen suggestion of what used to be.

I stop the bike and pick up a small obsidian flint. Black and cool in my hand, it looks shiny, dark and opaque. A childhood memory about obsidian pops into my mind and I hold it up to the sky. Sure enough, light comes streaming through. Obsidian’s translucence is revealed, the black rock rendered a dark brown by the sun, its thin edges a smoky gray.

Obsidian originates when volcanic lava cools suddenly and quickly. The obsidian in this valley is from an eruption of Cerro del Medio 1.13 – 1.16 million years ago, flowing into what was then a freshwater lake. Black, sharp, brittle, and smooth, it is incredibly useful for fashioning into tools, knives, and spears.

Jemez Mountain obsidian has been found across wide ranges, from California to Mississippi, from North Dakota to Mexico. Bearing a special chemical fingerprint of its origins, this obsidian can be traced back to Valles Caldera wherever it goes. It would have travelled these vast distances carried by humans, used for trading, tools, weapons. Along with the alluring black stone, people would have brought stories of Valles Caldera and the Jemez Mountains where they came from.

An afternoon meeting beckons, my time for this visit is running out. As I cycle back, a thought works its way into my mind, sharp and clear, like the point of an obsidian arrowhead: there is a rich history here beyond the burn scars of the recent past, and a future beyond the present landscape. I need to come again.

An archeologist holding a piece of obsidian.

Courtesy of Irene Owsley

15 Sept - My next visit to Obsidian Valley is with my childhood friend, Rebecca, and her guests, a family of three Austrians on holiday. They seem to think they’re in the Wild West. To them, New Mexico is some combination of real-life Breaking Bad and an old-fashioned spaghetti Western. They went to a rodeo at the State Fair, looked at cowboy boots, hats, belts and leather jackets in Santa Fe on the Plaza, and have now come up to Valles Caldera.

This time, we drive to the trailhead at VC05 and continue by foot. The Austrians are immediately enchanted by the shiny black rock, picking up pieces and marveling at them. Each time one finds a bigger fragment, they exclaim and hold it up. Walking slowly, we find pieces with spherulites, small spherical crystals embedded in the stone that give hints about the lava’s cooling process. I can see the question burning in their eyes: Can they take a piece home? Before I can explain that obsidian on the preserve is protected and must not be removed, Rebecca puts the fear of God – or fear of the mountain – into them saying, “It’s bad luck to take obsidian from the mountain.” Her voice is stern. The father drops the rock he’s holding as if it were hot, not cooled, lava. “Like the volcano might erupt?” he asks. We had already impressed on them the fact that the volcanoes in Valles Caldera are not extinct, they’re just sleeping.

“No,” Rebecca says with certainty. “Bad luck for you, not for us. Bad luck on your way back to Austria,” she says sweetly, but with a steeliness in her voice that allows no argument.

A few steps later, the mother stumbles on loose gravel but catches herself.

“That’s how it starts,” the father says, “first little bits of bad luck, things you shrug off. You stumble or break a shoelace. You spill your coffee and shatter the mug, you stain your white shirt, you lose your favorite pen, you’re late to the meeting, your flight is cancelled, your garden is flooded. It all just starts to snowball.”

Rebecca nods in grave agreement.

We head back. As we approach the car, I think I hear small pieces of obsidian clinking as they hit the ground, being emptied from pockets, someone returning the shiny black shards to the mountain, just in case.

Flakes of shiny obsidian scattered across the ground.

NPS

17 Sept - For one of the public engagement workshops I offer during my artist’s residency, I invite people to bring an object they associate with Valles Caldera. The objects are meant to serve as springboards for discussion around what Valles Caldera means to us as individuals. More than half of the participants bring or mention obsidian.

Among obsidian’s charms, one person admires the way obsidian “holds paradox” as a substance both opaque and transparent, born from extreme heat meeting sudden cold. Another shares an arrowhead that was crafted at a flint knapping demonstration here at Valles Caldera. Someone else tells a story about being invited to choose a sample from the personal collection of someone who had spent decades studying Valles Caldera obsidian. Even those who don’t choose obsidian as their object join in with a shared appreciation of this remarkable stone.

As the workshop concludes, I wonder: What is it about obsidian that enchants so many? A few days later, I visit Obsidian Valley again.

This time, I go solo, wanting to see what I can hear and learn by walking quietly. As before, the black flakes are immediately apparent, scattered at my feet. I venture further than on my previous visits, eyes trained on the ground. I scan the path, searching for shimmers of black, the inverse of looking for stars. The flakes become shards, then chunks, bigger and more frequent until obsidian spills like a black river across the path. I’m caught up in its shattered beauty, speechless and admiring. Although the stone doesn’t tell me its secrets, I find that I, too, have fallen under its spell.

Thinking back to my first visit, I reconsider the burn scars. Here is what I notice: The acres of downed trees and snags are still distressing, but lower down in the montane grassland, the burn seems less severe. There is charring on the trees, but they are still alive. In the understory, I notice more and varied vegetation. Along a small crevice on the back of Cerro del Medio, baby aspen groves have sprung up. Perhaps these patches of recovery are a function of shade and waterflow in the hillside. Last time, overwhelmed with reminders of the forest that burned more than a decade ago, I didn’t see the trees that are growing now.

After about a mile, a fallen blue spruce blocks the path. I think to myself, This must be the point at which the main character in a fairy tale would be warned to turn back to the known world. This would also be the point at which any self-respecting main character in a fairy tale would ignore the warning and proceed. That is, this is where the story really begins. I continue down the path.

At the bottom of the hill, I am rewarded with the sight of three magnificent, mature aspens, towering tall and green above a field of charred and fallen trunks. How did they survive? I don’t know, but I’m grateful they did. Even better, when I turn to look at the back of Cerro del Abrigo – the one that looks so bald on the south side – I see a different story on the southeast side. Groves of young aspens climb up the slopes, and hints, just hints of yellow and gold wave among the quaking green boughs. I know then that I’ll be back over the coming weeks to watch the progression of autumn on the hillside.

I glance up. The sky is gray dark. The afternoon monsoon approaches. A tremendous wind howls through the tree limbs. I imagine it is the voice of the valley, bossing light and clouds around, preparing for a storm. I hurry back, making it to the car just as fat splotches of rain begin to hit the dusty road.

20 Sept – On this visit to Obsidian Valley, I bring my older brother, David. After much badgering and encouragement, I have managed to convince him to come out to New Mexico for a few days and spend the weekend with me. Our middle brother, Mike, wanted to come, too, but couldn’t manage the time away. We head out to Obsidian Valley with our childhood memories of growing up in the foothills of the Jemez in tow.

Once again, I trace the evolution of obsidian flakes appearing, then disappearing in a sandier section, only to reappear as pebbles and rocks, growing larger and more frequent, their sharp shiny edges glinting in the sun. Along the way, David picks up the exact piece I had examined on my solo walk a few days before, tilting and twisting it as it glitters in the light. Funny that the same stone should catch both our eyes on different days.

We stop for a short break under some ponderosas, and I listen as David recalls various friends and stories from his high school years. He, too, has memories of late-night road trips to the Hot Springs and afternoons of cliff-jumping at the East Fork Box Canyon. He, too, cycled these roads extensively and much farther than I ever did. Like me, he has a personal geography of this place imprinted deep in his bones. And like me, he lives far away but can still hear the mountain’s call when he tilts his head in just the right way.

We often think of our roots as generations deep, but they can also be experiences deep. A set of experiences burnished into memory can become an underlying obligato to our days. However varied or distant our lives are now from when we were kids, my brothers and I share a foundation of pondering dark skies streaked with the Milky Way, cycling curvy mountain roads, skiing winter weekends on Pajarito Mountain, and playing in the clear streams and rivers fed by Jemez Mountain snowmelt. I’m glad my brother has been able to be a part of my residency.

Continuing on the path, we spot a baby horny toad and a bigger horny toad missing its tail. Before we go back to the cabin, we check on the aspens on the southeast hills of Cerro del Abrigo. It makes my heart sing to see that they are yellowing nicely.

An elk shed in Obsidian Valley.

NPS

26 September – I had planned to stay at the cabin and write, but the sky was so blue and the air was so clear and I wanted to see the Cerro del Abrigo aspens once more. So I’m here again, at VC05, heading into Obsidian Valley. This time, I will go further, to Valle Toledo – the remaining footprint of a caldera from 1.6 million years ago, one that preceded the formation of Valles Caldera. I have discovered that the hardest part of hiking this trail is having to turn back. But today, I have the luxury of many hours and miles ahead of me.

Past the river of obsidian, past the fallen blue spruce, down the hill to the mature aspens whose leaves are now golden, the trail unrolls beneath my feet. This will be my final visit to Obsidian Valley and I want to savor every footstep. I pause to check on the young aspens on Cerro del Abrigo’s southeast slopes. Their fluttering leaves of gold and red assure me that autumn has arrived.

Throughout my time at Valles Caldera, especially when I mention obsidian, there is one name that comes up repeatedly: Dr. Ana Steffen. One of the first federal employees to work in Valles Caldera after its sale to the US Government, Ana spent over two decades stewarding Valles Caldera and surrounding areas. She saw the preserve evolve from a Forest Service jurisdiction, through the Valles Caldera Trust era, to the present-day management by the National Park Service.

Trained as an archaeologist and anthropologist, her research was groundbreaking in many aspects of obsidian science ranging from the chemistry of its formation to the effects of fire on obsidian deposits. Her work extended beyond pure science to understand and document obsidian’s cultural significance to the many Indigenous groups for whom the Jemez Mountains and Valles Caldera are sacred. Over the years, her focus expanded to the broader remit of cultural and natural resources coordination for the preserve. Among her many projects was collecting oral histories of people who lived and worked in Valles Caldera when it was privately held. These histories are a treasure trove of stories that might have otherwise been lost. The more I learn about Ana Steffen, the more I am in awe. A person emerges whose vision of Valles Caldera fully embraces its multiple facets: geological, scientific, historical, cultural, and natural. One of her many titles was Interdisciplinary Scientist and Communicator. How fitting for a person with an immense intellect and incredibly generous heart who wanted to share the beauty and capaciousness of Valles Caldera.

I did not meet Ana. Sadly, she passed away in February 2024 after a courageous battle with cancer. Loved and lauded by colleagues, students, and volunteers, many of whom call her friend and mentor, the grief over her loss is still tangible. I imagine it always will be.

As I continue working on my writing inspired by Valles Caldera, I seem to see her everywhere in the memories, research, and resources she has left behind as her profound and far-reaching legacy. It is abundantly clear to me that Dr. Ana Steffen was as singular and treasured as the Cerro del Medio obsidian she studied and celebrated throughout her career.

Dr. Ana Steffen

19 Images

Women in science have contributed much to humankind's collective understanding of the world, and at Valles Caldera National Preserve, we have been fortunate to work alongside one of the most passionate and visionary scientists in the National Park Service: Dr. Ana Steffen.