Capulin Volcano National Monument: Summit and Vent Trails

After our hike of Garden of the Gods yesterday, we got lunch at Colorado Mountain Brewery and then headed south into New Mexico, the state where Sierra was born and our first time back since she was 6 months old. We drove through Raton Pass and stayed in the town of Raton. This morning I took Rosie for a walk around town.

It's an interesting place, though a little rough around the edges. 

After eating breakfast and packing up, we made a detour east to Capulin Volcano National Monument. Noelle and I had been there before, way back in 2002. I opted to buy an America the Beautiful Pass since we are planning a trip to Yellowstone for this coming summer. 

With our entrance fee paid, we made the drive up the Volcano Road to the summit area. Just from the parking lot, there's a really nice view of the surrounding Raton-Clayton Volcanic Field. However, we opted to do a little hiking to explore more. Our first short hike would be down into the volcano's vent. It was a pretty icy trail to get down there. 

In fact, Sierra fell a few times on the slick icy, snow. 

Eventually we made it down to the bottom with wonderful views of the surrounding cinder cone and microclimate of plants. 

We made our way back up the icy Vent Trail and then started the fairly steep trail up to the summit of the cinder cone. 

There were long stretches of clear trail, but also a few more sections of icy snow. Sierra fell a few times, though I don't think she tried particularly hard to stay upright. 

Views were pretty awesome, and as we made our way along the trail they opened up in all directions.

Noelle and I posed for a photo at the summit.

Then, we started to make our way down. Luckily the trail was almost completely clear on the part of the loop we took down. 

Noelle and Sierra posed for a photo at a little spur overlook.

I really enjoyed the great views of the imposing Sierra Grande volcano.

We finished our hike and drove back down the Volcano Road to the visitor center area where we got Rosie out of the car for a short hike on the paved Nature Trail. Her favorite part of the hike: sliding around on the piles of snow.