The Bosque de Arce State Park in Talpa de Allende is a magical place that each autumn acquires the characteristic colors of this season. Witnessing the Maple trees dyed in yellow, ochre, orange, red and brown is a sublime experience.
You don’t need to go all the way to Canada to see an authentic Maple Forest with your own eyes. Discover more information about the Bosque del Arce in Jalisco and how you can visit it.
A maple forest in Mexico?
The Bosque del Arce in Talpa de Allende has existed for around 23 million years. In addition, it is not the only one in Mexico, since along the Sierra de Manantlán and in some areas of Guerrero you can find other sugar maple forests, as this species is also called.
Thanks to the research that has been carried out on the subject, we know that it was during an ice age that these forests were born, since the low temperatures caused various animal and plant species endemic to the north of the continent to move south to survive.
However, all of this was virtually unknown to humans until the late 1990s, when the first sightings of these forests were made. It was in the year 2000 that the researchers Yalma Luis Vargas Rodríguez and José Antonio Vázquez García published this finding in the Bulletin of the Institute of Botany of the University of Guadalajara.
Thanks to this, since then efforts have been made to protect and preserve this treasure of Mexico’s biodiversity. The fruit of these efforts was the appointment of Bosque del Arce in Talpa de Allende as a state park in 2016.
Fascinating facts about the Maple Forest in Talpa de Allende
The Mexican maple, also called the Mexican sugar maple, is a species of tree that usually measures 20 to 40 meters in height, with a trunk up to 90 centimeters in diameter. They are very tall!
This species is considered critically endangered, according to the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The maples share the forest with other species such as: pines, oaks, oyamels, ailes and cirimos. It is considered a forest of high diversity.
The forest is open year-round, but if you want to see it when its leaves are in their stunning autumn colours, you need to visit between September and December.
Did you know…
The leaves change color in the fall because the days are shorter, so the plants receive less sunlight. This means that they produce less chlorophyll, which is what gives the leaves their green color. When there is little chlorophyll, the cycle begins in the pigmentation of the leaves: yellow, orange, red and brown.
How to visit the Maple Forest in Talpa de Allende?
To get there by car from Talpa, you must take the Llano Grande-Talpa de Allende highway in a southerly direction. Continue for 20 kilometers and you will reach a viewpoint from where you can take spectacular photos of the forest. Two more kilometers on the road is the entrance to the trail.
When walking through the forest, we recommend you not deviate from the path marked by the authorities so as not to interfere with the life of the place. It is also important not to leave garbage or belongings in the place since it is a fragile ecosystem that we have to take care of.
If you visit this place during the rainy season, you may very well need an SUV to get there. One possibility is to hire a tour from Talpa de Allende, since in that case the operator will take care of the transportation.
Source: Mexico Desconocido
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