The Pedregal Circuit

The experience

The park lies between 2,310 and 2,448 m, on the southern lobe of the Pedregal de San Ángel. Ninety percent of it rolls gently; the centre reaches 19 percent slopes and two spots, El Mirador and Piedra de los Sacrificios, are near-vertical rock. The paved loop takes the rolling ground; the clay oval takes none of it.

The ground is the basalt of the Xitle eruption, which SEDEMA dates to about 2,000 years ago, and the forest grew on it twice: once as native oak and scrub, once as the eucalyptus and pine planted by the Loreto y Peña Pobre paper mill that owned the land until the city bought it in 1968.

The land belonged to the Loreto y Peña Pobre paper factory, whose reforestation from 1935 put eucalyptus and pine on the Zacatépetl and Zacayuca hills. The city bought it in 1968 and ran it as a zoo until 1988. Cerro Zacatépetl inside the park has pre-Hispanic remains, and the circular pyramid of Cuicuilco, buried by the same Xitle lava, stands across the Periférico. Since 1981 the Corredores del Bosque de Tlalpan association has run the Carrera del Día del Padre half marathon on the third Sunday of June, with proceeds for the park.

Where the sources disagreeSEDEMA's own pages disagree about the gate. Its protected-area page says visiting hours are 7 to 17 every day; its 2018 supplement says 5 to 17 daily; its February 2021 note says 5:00 to 16:30 Tuesday to Sunday, closed Monday. Runners go at 5. Confirm on the day. The long loop is asphalt, not trail; the dirt is on the short links between circuits. Dogs and pets are barred by the management plan and feral dogs are recorded as a predator problem inside the park. A March 2025 SEDEMA programme is felling dead eucalyptus, cedar and pine and replanting natives, so expect closed sections. Mexico City ozone days are real above 2,300 m: check aire.cdmx.gob.mx before a hard session.

Every run here is free to read. The Field Cap pays for the next place we go and verify, and the runners wearing it are what keeps this independent.