Where the Only Tropical Rainforest in the U.S. Meets the Work of Puerto Rican Artists

The Science and Conservation Trail at El Yunque National Forest is a short loop — about half a mile — that manages to deliver two entirely different kinds of experiences. A paved spur from the El Portal del El Yunque visitor center leads into the forest with interpretive signs explaining the ecology and ongoing recovery of the only tropical rainforest in the United States National Forest System. The loop itself adds a second dimension: works by Puerto Rican artists set directly into the forest — Brota el agua by Lena Galíndez, De Río a Río by Edra Soto, and La Madre de Yocahú by Daniel Lind-Ramos. It is a walk where science and art share the same canopy, and both are made richer for it.

The Science and Conservation Trail is one of several walking paths accessible from the El Portal visitor center area. Its combination of interpretive science content and public art installations makes it unlike any other trail in the National Forest System — and the rainforest setting makes it unlike anything else in the continental United States.

Getting to the Trailhead

The trail begins at El Portal del El Yunque, the main visitor center for El Yunque National Forest. El Portal is located along Puerto Rico Highway 191 (PR-191) near the northern entrance to the forest, just outside the town of Río Grande on Puerto Rico’s northeastern coast. From San Juan, the drive takes approximately 45 minutes. El Portal is the recommended first stop — the center provides maps, orientation, and context for the forest before you head into the canopy.

El Yunque National Forest is located in the Sierra de Luquillo mountains in the northeastern corner of Puerto Rico, roughly 25 miles east of San Juan. The forest is the only tropical rainforest in the United States National Forest System, and El Portal sits at its edge — the gateway between the island’s coastal communities and one of the most biodiverse places in the country.

Hiking the Trail

From El Portal, a short paved spur path leads from the visitor center directly into the forest. This opening section is where the trail’s interpretive content lives — signs along the spur explain El Yunque’s ecology, the ongoing research being conducted in the forest, and the remarkable recovery underway since Hurricane Maria struck the island in September 2017. The spur is accessible, unhurried, and sets the scientific frame for everything that follows.

The loop itself begins where the spur enters the forest proper. Here the character of the walk shifts. The canopy closes in — sierra palms, tabonuco trees, and towering tree ferns rise on either side, draped in bromeliads and mosses. The air is heavy and cool, carrying the particular quality of a place that receives over 100 inches of rain per year in its upper elevations. And woven into this setting, at intervals along the loop, are works by Puerto Rican artists — installations placed directly in the forest, responding to this place and to the island’s history and culture. Brota el agua by Lena Galíndez meets you on the north segment, deep in the canopy. De Río a Río by Edra Soto anchors the westernmost point of the loop. And La Madre de Yocahú by Daniel Lind-Ramos — a monumental assemblage invoking the Taíno goddess Atabey — marks the southern return.

The loop is short enough to walk without hurry and rich enough to reward stopping. The combination of science interpretation on the spur and art on the loop gives the trail two distinct registers — both worth paying attention to. The return brings you back out to El Portal through the same forest edge, the transition from canopy to open sky feeling different on the way out than it did on the way in.

Highlights Along the Way

The Forest Itself

El Yunque is the most visited national forest in the United States — and the most biodiverse. The forest is home to more than 240 tree species, 50 of which are found nowhere else on Earth. The understory along the Science and Conservation Trail is dense with tree ferns, some belonging to genera that predate the dinosaurs. Epiphytes — bromeliads, orchids, mosses — coat nearly every surface. The sounds of the forest are as layered as the canopy: coquí frogs, birds, insects, and the constant movement of water.

Brota el agua — Lena Galíndez

Brota el agua — Water Springs Forth — by Lena Galíndez is installed on the northern segment of the loop, where the trail is deepest in the forest. The title speaks directly to El Yunque’s defining element: water is everywhere here, rising through the roots, dripping from the canopy, moving constantly through the soil. Galíndez’s work places that relationship between water and life at the center, inviting a kind of attention to the forest that pure ecology interpretation can only gesture toward.

De Río a Río — Edra Soto

Edra Soto is a Chicago-based artist born in Puerto Rico whose practice engages deeply with Puerto Rican identity, domestic space, and visual culture. De Río a Río — From River to River — is installed at the westernmost point of the loop, its title resonant in a place where water is everywhere: in the canopy, in the soil, running through the roots of every tree. Soto’s work in El Yunque places Puerto Rican artistic expression directly in the landscape that shaped the island’s culture, creating a conversation between the forest and the people who have always lived within and beside it.

La Madre de Yocahú — Daniel Lind-Ramos

Daniel Lind-Ramos is one of Puerto Rico’s most celebrated contemporary artists, known for large-scale assemblage sculptures that draw on Afro-Caribbean spiritual traditions, the island’s agricultural history, and the natural world. La Madre de Yocahú — The Mother of Yocahú — takes its name from Atabey, the Taíno goddess of fresh water and fertility, and mother of Yocahú, the supreme deity of the Taíno people. The title is a deliberate invocation of the forest’s deep human history: El Yunque takes its name from the Taíno word Yuké, and the mountain has been a sacred place for far longer than it has been a national forest. Lind-Ramos’s work on the southern return of the loop anchors the trail’s artistic program in the spiritual and cultural landscape that predates European contact — and that the forest has always carried.

The Recovery Story

The interpretive signs along the spur tell a story that is still unfolding. Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017 as a Category 4 storm and stripped the canopy from nearly the entire forest. Scientists who had studied El Yunque for decades described it as unrecognizable. But the forest’s species have survived hurricanes for millennia — the trees here evolved to come back — and the regrowth in the years since has been extraordinary. Walking the trail today, it is possible to see both the evidence of the storm and the evidence of recovery in the same glance.

What Makes This Trail Special

The Science and Conservation Trail asks very little of your legs and a great deal of your attention. In half a mile, it moves through science, art, ecology, and culture without any of them feeling forced together. The forest is extraordinary on its own terms — there is nothing else like a tropical rainforest in the National Forest System, and the sensory experience of the canopy, the ferns, the heavy air, and the sound of coquís is genuinely unlike any other trail in this series. The three art installations add a layer that most trails never attempt: the idea that this landscape is also a cultural space, shaped by and belonging to the people of Puerto Rico. Galíndez listens to the water. Soto traces the rivers. Lind-Ramos reaches back to the Taíno. Together they make the loop something more than a walk — they make it a conversation with the island itself.

Tips for Visiting

• Start at El Portal — the visitor center provides maps, restrooms, and orientation to the forest before you head out.
• Come prepared for rain. El Yunque receives over 100 inches annually in its upper elevations — a light rain layer or poncho is worth carrying year-round.
• Bring bug spray. The forest is prime mosquito territory, especially after rain.
• Walk the spur slowly before the loop — the interpretive signs establish context that makes the art installations more meaningful.
• Give each art installation time — Brota el agua, De Río a Río, and La Madre de Yocahú each reward a slow look. They are not roadside stops; they are part of the forest.

El Yunque and the National Forest System

El Yunque National Forest has been under federal protection longer than the National Forest System itself. The forest was first set aside by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903 as the Luquillo Forest Reserve — one of the earliest federal forest reserves in the United States — and was formally incorporated into the National Forest System in 1935. It is administered by the USDA Forest Service and covers approximately 28,000 acres in the Sierra de Luquillo mountains. El Yunque is the only tropical rainforest in the National Forest System, and as such it serves as one of the most important sites for tropical ecology research in the country. The Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research site — part of a network funded by the National Science Foundation — has produced decades of data on forest structure, species diversity, disturbance, and recovery, much of which informs the interpretive content along the Science and Conservation Trail.

The forest sits within the traditional territory of the Taíno people, whose presence in Puerto Rico predates European contact by more than a thousand years. The name Yuké — meaning white lands, likely a reference to the clouds that perpetually wrap the upper peaks — is the Taíno name for the mountain at the forest’s heart, and the source of the name El Yunque. The forest’s long history of human connection, from the Taíno through Spanish colonial administration to U.S. federal protection, is part of what makes El Portal and its trails a layered experience. The Science and Conservation Trail, with its combination of ecological research and Puerto Rican artistic expression, sits squarely in that tradition.

Tuesdays on the Trail Video

This trail guide pairs with our Tuesdays on the Trail video episode, where we walk the Science and Conservation Trail and explore the forest, the art, and the story of El Yunque’s recovery.

Final Thoughts

Half a mile is a short walk by almost any measure. But the Science and Conservation Trail at El Yunque earns its place in this series not through distance but through density — the density of the forest itself, the density of its ecology and history, and the particular richness of a trail that has the ambition to place art in a rainforest and trust that both will be better for it. El Yunque is the only tropical rainforest in the United States National Forest System. There is nothing else like it. If Puerto Rico is on your map, make sure the forest is too.

Helpful Links & Resources

• El Yunque National Forest – USDA Forest Service
• El Portal del El Yunque Visitor Center – Forest Service
• Science and Conservation Trail – Forest Service
• Edra Soto – Artist Website
• Daniel Lind-Ramos – Artist Website
• Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research Site

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