The San Luis Valley Public Land Center is composed of the Rio Grande National Forest and the San Luis Valley Bureau of Land Management. The Rio Grande National Forest is approximately 1.86 million acres in size and is located in the mountains surrounding the San Luis Valley. The SLV Bureau of Land Management is composed of almost 600,000 acres of land in the foothills and on the Valley floor.

Education Programs and Teaching Materials

The SLV Public Land Center employs a full-time environmental education specialist who provides a variety of classroom presentations and outdoor field trips to all age groups. To avoid scheduling conflicts, it is generally best to schedule presentations and field trips at least two weeks in advance.

Learn more about SLV Public Land Center's education programs and teaching materials in ECEC's Teaching Resources.

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• South Fork Education Center - 1.1 miles up the Beaver Creek Road. Located at the South Fork Guard Station southwest of South Fork.
• Big Tree - Less than one-half mile east of Cross Creek Campground, at the south end of Beaver Creek Reservoir (4 1/2 miles south of South Fork).
• Summer Coon Volcano - Eight to nine miles north of Del Norte.
• Biome Tour - Sixteen miles southwest of Del Norte on Grayback Mountain. Take Pinos Creek Road (County Road 14) southwest to Grayback Mountain.
• Bonanza - Fifteen miles north of Saguache.
• Blanca Wetlands - Seven miles east on County Road 2S from HWY 17. Located about 10 miles northeast of Alamosa.
• Zapata Falls - Five miles south of Great Sand Dunes Monument and Preserve on HWY 150.
• County Line - 1.5 miles west of Trujillo Meadows Reservoir. Located in the southwest corner of the forest next to the Conejos County/Archuleta County line.
• Penitente Canyon - Two miles east of La Garita, 12 miles north of Del Norte.

Natural History

Forty million years ago, magma began pushing up through the earth’s crust creating explosive volcanoes that formed the mountains we call the San Juans today. Periods of volcanic activity continued in this area until ten million years ago. Starting about thirty-five million years ago, stresses within the crust just east of the San Juans created the Rio Grande rift causing the ground to uplift into the magnificent Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The Rio Grande rift is still active today and the Sangre de Cristos are growing faster than they are eroding.

The Rio Grande National Forest is so named because the Rio Grande starts within the Forest’s boundaries. Starting high up in the alpine tundra of the San Juan Mountains, the Rio Grande tumbles through the cool spruce and fir subalpine forest. As the river drops out of the mountains, it passes through the Douglas-fir and the Ponderosa pine of the montane zone, then the pinon pine and Rocky Mountain juniper of the foothills zone. Finally, the Rio Grande winds through the semi-desert and desert landscape of the San Luis Valley floor.

The SLV Bureau of Land Management lands includes a diversity of landscapes in the foothills and Valley floor. Zapata Falls carves through a cliff at the edge of a glacial moraine in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The red walls of Penitente Canyon were carved out of ash flows within the La Garita caldera of the San Juan Mountains. And the over two hundred ponds of Blanca Wetlands are the result of water bubbling up from artesian wells onto the Valley floor.

Cultural History

Humans came into the upper Rio Grande Basin approximately 11,200 years ago. Clovis, Folsom, and Archaic people all left signs of their existence throughout the lands of the SLV Public Land Center. Modern day American Indians arrived about 700 years ago and included the Ute, Navajo, Apache, Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho and Pueblo peoples.

The Spanish made forays into what is now Colorado’s San Luis Valley as early as the 1600s, but they did not establish a permanent settlement until the 1850s. Anglo Americans began exploring the San Luis Valley in the early 1800s. During the winter of 1848-49, John Charles Freemont’s Fourth Expedition attempted to cross the Rocky Mountains. The expedition became snowbound in the La Garita Mountains and lost all 120 of their mules. High stumps, skeletal remains of mules, and artifacts have been found on the Rio Grande National Forest at what is believed to have been the expedition’s campsite.

In the late 1800s, miners, ranchers, and loggers worked what are now the lands of the SLV Public Land Center. Many of the forest lands came under protection as Timber Reserves in 1905, which later became the Rio Grande National Forest in 1908. More lands were added to the Forest over the years and the Rio Grande National Forest now encompasses over 1.8 million acres.

Even after National Parks, National Forests, and Wildlife Refuges were established, there were still millions of acres of unappropriated public lands in the West. The oversight of these lands came under the jurisdiction of the General Land Office. The San Luis Valley contained some of these lands, which eventually came under the management of the Bureau of Land Management in 1946. Today, there are almost 600,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management lands in the San Luis Valley.

The most recent chapter in the history of the Rio Grande National Forest and the SLV Bureau of Land Management started in 1996 with the Service First Initiative. Since the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management have similar missions, the two agencies decided to share personnel and offices. The initiative was designed to improve efficiency and provide better customer service. On April 18, 2004, the Service First Initiative in the San Luis Valley received Washington, DC approval to become the San Luis Valley Public Land Center. Although each agency still has its own identity, they are housed in the same offices, share many personnel, and collaborate often on land management projects.