Gramont Peak Trail

We had another successful volunteer trail building day out at Box Canyon on Saturday June 4th, to celebrate National Trails Day. Approximately 20 volunteers built the 0.6 mile trail to the overlook at Gramont Peak. It'll be on the BLM trail map shortly!

Now that we've made it up to the ridge line, the next project will extend the trail to the north, connecting to the main Box trail head. We'll continue after that to the North-East, ending at a trail head near the 'shrine'. This will make a nice loop at the end of Black Canyon for mountain bikers, hikers and equestrians. 

New BLM Trail Maps

 Between the various volunteer groups we've had a lot of progress the last 12 months on trails near Box Canyon and San Lorenzo Canyon. The BLM has formalized these contributions on a set of new trail maps. Check 'em out if you want to go explore:

Blue Canyon Trail Map

San Lorenzo Canyon Trail Map (more hiking than biking today)

Datil Well Trail Map

Blue Canyon Trail is Open!

Thanks to our friends at the BLM Socorro Field Office, the widetrack trail from the top of Blue canyon to the city limit is now complete! You can find a map of it here. 

The widetrack section still needs a bit of finish work (we'll schedule another volunteer day in the near future), but it's rideable/hikable today, so you should check it out!

The City of Socorro has also made progress connecting the widetrack section of the Blue Canyon Trail to the 5K trail at the Rodeo Complex. A new access road/trail connects from the 5K trail to the fence line. If all goes well, final connections will be roughed in and gates installed within the next couple of months. 

Blue Canyon Build Day #2

 

We had a very successful volunteer build day on Blue Canyon Trail this last weekend! Thanks to our local volunteers, Blue Canyon Trail now extends out of Blue Canyon on to the ridgeline west of Socorro. The BLM trail crew can meet us there, building the ridge line trail with a skid steer (we don't have to build that segment by hand). With luck, we'll have a trail to enjoy from town to Box later this fall. Black Canyon Trail also received some maintenance, and makes for a good hike or bike ride again. Thank you again to all our volunteer builders!

Blue Canyon Trail Progress

Work has officially started on the Blue Canyon Trail - connecting the Socorro Rodeo Grounds to the Box Canyon recreation area! We had 30 volunteers last weekend pitch in and build the trail descending from the Black Canyon Trail head into Blue Canyon. We'll have another build day in a month or so to climb out the other side, so stay tuned!

Black Canyon Trail

 A lot is happening on the trail development front lately, and we're happy that the first trail building project of 2021, the Black Canyon Trail, is officially complete!

Thanks to three days of volunteer effort, with 9 to 30+ volunteers each day and a lot of prep-work and planning by the BLM team, we've got a wonderful hiking and biking trail to enjoy. The environmental and archaeological reviews are progressing for the other trails in the Box area, so hopefully we'll be able to improve another trail this summer and connect back to the Rodeo Grounds by fall. 

If you'd like to check out Black Canyon Trail, you can find a map on MTB Project. The Chupadera Crossing loop is a nice way to make a ride out of it.

Photo thanks to Patrick Brandt.

For the Love of Gravel

I'm admittedly naturally drawn to mountain biking over road cycling, but road riding became a lot more interesting once I realized that "road" needn't mean "asphalt".

For a place like Socorro, most modern road bikes suck. 20-25mm wide tires, 90 psi, and aggressive geometries all add up to a harsh ride on less maintained roads, and forget about hitting that gravel or two-track path. Fortunately, parts of the bike industry have caught on, providing 'randonneur' or touring bikes, and more recently gravel bikes.

I've entered this world of 'alternative' road bikes and I'm never looking back. Upright geometries, wider 21-25mm hoops and 700x40c tires at 30-35 psi are awesome for exploring! Faster than you're 29er XC bike, but still rugged enough for the odd bit of single track.

Suddenly there's a whole other world out there to explore. This last weekend's ride is shown below, along with a number of other connecting two-tracks I've explored recently or intend to soon.

Break free of the asphalt chains and go explore!