Rio Grande Trail Commission Gathering - Thursday September 17th 4-6pm

On Thursday September 17th the Rio Grande Trail Commission will be here in town, holding a gathering at Box Canyon Brewing Co from 4:00-6:00pm. Representatives from the Outdoor Recreation Division, which has funded recent work here, will also attend. 

This is a good opportunity to see the new alignment maps for the Rio Grande Trail, and to provide your input on desired trail and outdoor recreation development.

Please consider dropping in, checking out their plans, and letting them know what you want to see in improved outdoor recreation opportunities in Socorro County. Feel free to come have a pint and chat; this is a drop-in and leave-as-you-wish event. 

Recent Trails Activities

We've not been keeping up on the blog lately, but there's been quite a bit of activity since the Mesa Trail project in May. Here's a quick update on some recent volunteer projects with NMVFO: 

• A small team of volunteers cleared Deadhorse Trail 12 between Mesa Trail 13 and South Canyon Trail 14 in June. It's much easier to follow now and makes for a good loop hike: up Mesa, down Deadhorse, and then back on South Canyon to the road.
• Another small team of volunteers cleared the Socorro Valley Bosque Trail corridor last weekend.

As part of a Trails+ grant from the Outdoor Recreation Division, we're working with the USFS and City of Socorro on some significant improvements in the Magdalena Mountains:

• We contracted out archaeological surveys for 70 miles of existing and proposed trails in the Magdalena range. The contractor has finished their field work and is finalizing their reports. These missing surveys had been the main impediment to doing treadwork in the Maggies, and that's now a sorted issue.
• We have a crew with the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps working on Mesa Trail this week for six days. They started on Wednesday. They'll be doing tread work starting from the top near the overlook and working their way down.
• We'll have a number of improvements at the Mesa Trailhead: new road and trail signs, picnic tables, gravel parking lot and boulder barriers. The project should wrap up by this fall. 

Thank you to everyone who's been pitching in on projects! These projects only happen because people keep volunteering their time and energy, and we can't thank you enough. We'll have another project in about a month focused on maintaining the rodeo grounds trails since we have the youth mountain bike race taking place there at the end of October (24th-25th).

Mesa Trail 13 - May 30th

In collaboration with our friends at NMVFO, we have planned a maintenance day for Mesa Trail #13 in the Magdalenas on Saturday, May 30th. 

The plan is to clear downed trees, clear sections of the corridor of overgrowth, and improve navigation on the upper loop. This project involves a pretty long hike (~9 miles) so we'll plan for a full workday, including a lunch break. 

This is the first step in a larger project: the Forest Service is improving the trailhead (new signs, picnic tables and rock barriers) later this year and we also have the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps scheduled to do tread/erosion repair this fall. The NM Outdoor Recreation Division has funded this through a Trails+ grant, and we should have a much nicer trail and trailhead for our combined efforts!

If you are willing to help out with this project, please sign up on the NMVFO webpage:

https://nmvfo.org/projects/mesa-trail-13-magdalena-rd/

Thank you for considering spending your time and energy on this project.