Piedra Herrada is a protected area just to the east of Valle de Bravo, and one of several sites in the Cordillera Neovolcanica range where the Eastern Monarch population overwinters in the Oyamel forests.
The round-trip to a place as far north as Minnesota can span four generations, so no individual of these millions of butterflies has ever known this place, or will ever see it again. We were very blessed to be the first to arrive on this day, and to be all alone in this magical place as the sunlight roused the butterflies from the trees and into the crisp mountain air, which was then filled with the susurration of countless wings.
The pics above and below are of Xinantecatl (or Nevado de Toluca), about 80k west of Mexico City and towering to 4,680 metres (15,354 ft) at the summit. The photo above shows Sun Lake, which actually attracts scuba divers looking for the "world's highest dive." The smaller Moon Lake is also shown in the video at the bottom of this blog entry. The point we hiked to was at least 14,000 feet in elevation, and having just come from sea level 24 hours earlier, we felt every step.
These videos don't do either site justice, but we've included them anyway.
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