Cumbres de Monterrey

Cumbres de Monterrey National Park was decreed in 1939 in Nuevo León and protects an extensive sector of the Sierra Madre Oriental surrounding the Monterrey metropolitan area. It is one of the largest national parks in Mexico and an essential piece in the city's water supply, which depends on the aquifers and runoff of these ranges.

The relief is one of steep limestone folds, with aligned ridges, plateaux and deep canyons cut by the rivers, among them La Huasteca, Cola de Caballo and Matacanes, regular settings for climbing, canyoning and hiking. Altitudes range from 600 to more than 3,500 metres, which produces a complete zonation from the submontane scrub and oak woods of the lower ground to the pine and sacred fir forests and the high-altitude grasslands.

That variety, together with its position in the Sierra Madre Oriental corridor, supports a biodiversity that is high for northern Mexico: black bear, puma, white-tailed deer, collared peccary and a birdlife that includes the military macaw and cliff-nesting raptors. The park has had its area reduced at various points in its history to exclude land already built on or under disputed ownership, and today it faces the pressure of Monterrey's growth, forest fires and property developments along its edges.