Lions Cave-Broken Mesa-Lower Water Canyon Trails Hike – 03/23/2026

Weather will soon be summer – hot. We have been curious about trails around White Rock, so chose this one to start exploring.

The Drive In

Find your way to White Rock on NM 4, then continue west towards Valles Caldera; not far, 2.8 miles from the Visitors Center, to Los Alamos Gate 8a and a large parking lot on the south side of the highway.

The Hike

Lions Cave-Broken Mesa Trails Hike.Pat.2026-03-23
Notes about the Google Earth screenshot: the graph at the bottom shows elevation of the track (pink area) and speed (the blue line). Click on the image for a full-screen view.

This is really quite a nice trail, offering a loop – down in one canyon, the a return on another. After a steep climb from the trailhead, it is a gentle descent on the Lions Cave trail along, mostly walking in loose sand of the wash. At the intersection with the Broken Mesa trail, we continued ahead to extend our hike. Soon, we had a choice – continue in the canyon or take a leg of the trail that went up onto Broken Mesa. After some deliberation (see below) we chose the ascent up to the top of Broken Mesa.

After enjoying the view of the canyons towards the Rio Grande (-the- prominent feature of the mesas hereabouts), we made the not-so-steep trail down into Water Canyon and to the Lower Water Canyon Trail. From here it was again a gentle slope, now an ascent, back to the trailhead. Water Canyon is quite wide (compared to that for the Lion Cave Trail) with much openness among healthy ponderosa pine, piñon, and juniper trees. And the trail is on more solid terrain than a wash.

An amazing feature of these cañons are the walls. Especially along Lion Cave Trail, the trail was flanked by vertical walls of volcanic Bandelier Tuff filled with holes. It’s fascinating – we didn’t get a good photo, so you’ll have to go there yourselves.

Highlight

On GAIA this trail appeared to be a nice loop. And looking closer, the elevation changes were easy … except for one short section. During planning, we took a closer look:

We had GAIA draw a Route on the dotted-line track of the trail, then on the elevation profile, then noted the Grade for the steep section — 20% ascent.
We also did this by Exporting the GAIA Route and loading it into GoogleEarth. Again checking the elevation profile, GE gave us a maximum slope of 20% with a maximum slope of 40%.

As we approached section with the steep ascent, after some deliberation – do we want to try it -, we decided, – let’s give it a go -. Sure enough, it was steep requiring climbing up from one rock platform to another, almost on hands-and-knees. We were happy with our choice – an accomplishment for us – and the view from the top was worth it. (Note: We thanked ourselves for choosing to go -up- this section rather than -down-.)

Statistics

Total Distance: 3.45 miles
Elevation: start 6,447 ft, maximum 6,498 ft, minimum 6,234 ft
Gross gain: 264 ft. Aggregate ascending 687 ft, descending 672 ft
Maximum slope: 43% ascending, 39% descending, 6.5% average
Duration: 3:16, Average Speed: 1.1 mph, Shade: 0%

Lions Cave-Broken Mesa Trails Hike.Pat.2026-03-23 (KML)	0 Downloads
GPS Track Files for Download
Lions Cave-Broken Mesa Trails Hike.Pat.2026-03-23 (GPX)	0 Downloads
Link to GAIA GPS: “Lions Cave-Broken Mesa Trails Hike.Pat.2026-03-23”
If you haven’t explored these hiking tracks with Google Earth, give it a try. With the virtual 3-dimensional presentation, achieved by panning and tilting the view, you can get good idea of the hike and the terrain. For some ideas, check out Using Google Earth Track Files.