Socorro Valley Bosque Trail Work

It's the time of year to enjoy the Socorro Valley Bosque Trail, so a small group of us worked on trail cleanup, overgrowth clearing, and trail marker installation today. Extra thanks to our friends at NMVFO who donated the trail markers and stickers to improve navigation along the trail! 

The Socorro Valley Bosque Trail is about 3.25 miles long and passes through a few of the Riverine Parks. It's not pretty easy to follow, starting from Otero Park just east of Socorro. The river is flowing nicely and the leaves are still in full color in this southern part of the Bosque, so make sure to visit the trail and enjoy the fall colors while we still can!

The Lasso Loop Lineup is a Wrap!

Thank you to NMICL, the City of Socorro, and all the volunteers who helped pull off the Lasso Loop Lineup youth MTB race this weekend. We had 118 racers from middle school through high school and a lot of positive feedback (though we could have all done without the wind!) Thank you racers, coaches and parents for coming out! 

We're proud of our little part in it and happy to see that the race course held up to its first test. It was really rewarding to see these young athletes push their limits while demonstrating fair and generous behavior - especially the varsity girls who were neck and neck for four laps! There are always lessons learned with a new event, but we're calling this one a success and look forward to making the Rodeo Grounds Hoedown Throwdown on October 28-29 even better!

Landavaso Trail Progress

Here's a quick report from Mike Comiskey of the BLM Socorro Field office about the Landavaso Trail build day last Saturday:

Thank you everyone for the great turnout and hard work.  We had 13 hardworking volunteers that came up from the Socorro area, 2 all the way from Datil New Mexico and 14 from Magdalena for a total of 29 trailbuilders!  The lower loop of the trail is 98% complete due to the hard work on National Public Lands Day, with a couple small sections still in the rough cut stage.  The longer upper loop is completely rough cut so the entire trail is very walkable and easy to follow, but will require users to be carful and watch their footing on the rough cut sections.  Thank you everyone who participated and thank you to the great partners who contributed drinks, snacks, vouchers, and their valuable time. If there are any questions about the Landavaso trail, or any BLM trails in Socorro and Catron County contact the BLM Socorro Field Office, or BLM New Mexico webpage.  

Here's a link to some photos from the day. And here's the location of the trailhead if you'd like to check it out. 

Inaugural Youth MTB Race - Saturday Sept 30th!

It's on! We're hosting the Lasso Loop Lineup at the Socorro Rodeo Grounds & Sports Complex on Saturday September 30th! This will be the first of two youth mountain bike races hosted in Socorro this fall. We've had great support from the volunteer crew on trail construction for the race course, and now we need your help putting on the event. 

If you're willing to volunteer please sign up through the volunteer registration form. If you can't make the full day, then we hope to see you out to cheer the kids on and soak in some of the good vibes!

Landavaso Trail Project - Saturday Sept 23rd

Time to kick-off our next project! The BLM Socorro Field Office is organizing a volunteer build day to break ground on the Landavaso Trail System near Magdalena on Saturday September 23rd (National Public Lands Day)

This will be a nice little multi-use trail just north of Hwy 60 and the Magdalena airport, so easy to get to and in a quite pretty area. The plan is to work from 9am to 2pm. 

If you're willing to pitch in please contact us so we can get a rough headcount (though walk-up volunteers are certainly welcome). Hope to see many of you there!

North Baldy Trail 8 Cleared

Thanks to the crew of volunteers for clearing overgrowth and dead-fall on North Baldy Trail 8 this weekend!

This was a difficult project - Trail 8 is challenging logistically and a long hike no matter how you tackle it. However, it's also a central trail connecting North Fork, Copper Canyon, and Hop Canyon Trails, so having this work done makes a lot of hikes and bike rides in the area more fun. 

Thanks for stepping up folks! You can always find out where we've been putting our effort in the Magdalena Mountains by checking the Magdalena Trails Status Map. Anything green is sorted. 

As always, if you're interested in volunteering with us please contact us. 

Descansos Trail is Done!

With appreciation to the BLM and the Rocky Mountain Youth Corp team for finishing it, the Descansos Trail is now fully open. This is a scenic and interesting hike, or a fun, flowy and technical advanced trail on a mountain bike. 

The trail extends from the ridge below Gramont Peak north towards the Box and then east towards the Shrine near Highway 60, which now functions as a trailhead. Make it into a loop with the Black Canyon and Gramont Peak trails. 

The approach trail on the old road by the Shrine still needs some finish work but is useful, and the single track is done. We're in the process of uploading the trail to MTB Project, Trailforks and Hiking Project to make it easy to find. Share some photos if you check it out!

Hop Canyon trails 25 & 25A are clear!

With thanks to our friends at the New Mexico Volunteers for the Outdoors, we held a joint trail maintenance day on Trails 25 and 25A heading out of Hop Canyon south of Magdalena, NM. 

One crew worked on clearing the deadfall on Trail 25, while the second crew worked on the overgrowth and a bit of deadfall on Trail 25A. I think in total we cleared 24 trees and brushed 5 miles of trail!

There are a few photos from the crew on TR25 at the NMVFO Flickr page if you're interested. And if you'd like to know if a trail has been worked on before your next hike or bike trip, check out our trail status map - any trails in green are good to go!

Magdalena Mountains Trail Conditions

We're working with the Magdalena Ranger District, Cibola National Forest trail folks, and our friends at NMVFO to improve the condition of the trails in the Magdalena Mountains. You can see the trails that have been recently scouted and/or cleared on our Trail Status Map. 

Bookmark it and check it before you go out for a hike or bike ride. As of early July, Mesa Trail 13, South Baldy Trail 11 and Copper Canyon Trail 10 are all in pretty good shape. Anything green on the map is resolved, yellow items are partially resolved, and black represents our "to do" list. 

We welcome trail reports too if you record a track and GPS coordinates for problem spots!

Go ride the Lasso Loop Trail!

We've been making great progress on the new trail at the Rodeo Grounds, now named the Lasso Loop. The full trail has been roughed in and cleaned up. What the trail needs the most now is moisture and compaction, so yesterday's rain and the forecast for next week are very welcome. Please feel encouraged to go ride, run or hike the trail - use will help the tread compact into a hard surface. 

The trail now has a segment on Strava and we're in the process of uploading it to all the mapping apps, starting with TrailForks. Go check it out!

The City will be supporting us with trail marker sign installation over the next few weeks which will make the route easier to navigate, and they're working on a trail-head kiosk too. We're looking forward to the inaugural youth mountain bike race this October!

Rodeo Grounds Single Track Progress

With many thanks to the 13 volunteers who pitched in this Saturday, we now have about 1.7 miles of the new 2.6 miles of single track roughed-in! It's very soft out there still and it needs finish work, but it was good enough for Justin and Luke to go for a spin and try it out. We'll be continuing this project on Saturday May 13th. 

 

Socorro Single Track Trail Map Finalized

 

We've reached some consensus on names and finalized the Socorro Single Track Trail Network map! Many thanks to Christine at the BLM for helping with the GIS function on this one, and for everyone who submitted feedback on the map and trial names. We'll put one of these up near the East Rd trailhead shortly, and be updating the various user apps (such as mtb project to match).

5K Single Track Approved!

With many thanks to the City of Socorro, we're developing a single track extension to the City of Socorro 5K Trail at the Rodeo Arena & Sports Complex! This trail will be useful for recreation year round, but it's main aim will be as a race course for the New Mexico Interscholastic Cycling League who'll be hosting a regular race here starting on October 27-29th, 2023. More info on this soon as we'll need a bit of volunteer help on finish work and compacting the tread line. 

We're really excited about this trail and even more excited to have youth mountain bike racing here in Socorro. If you're interested in coaching a local middle school or high school team we'd love to hear from you!

Socorro Single Track Map

We're aiming to standardize on a map and trail names for the Socorro Single Track Network. You can find a draft of it below. Input on names or other missing information is very welcome while we try to reach a consensus amongst the users, land managers, and other stakeholders. We'll make a sign for the trailhead and update the online maps once we have agreement.

Descansos Trail Build Day #3

UPDATE: Build day is postponed/cancelled. We've hit a snag with ongoing review of the documentation that approves the construction of the trail. We will reschedule once the issue is resolved. 

We'll have our final trail building day on the Descansos Trail - connecting the north and south segments - on April 15th. It's a beautiful trail and we hope you'll join us! We're working in partnership with our friends at the New Mexico Volunteers for the Outdoors, so please consider registering with them or contact us to be on the local volunteer list. 

National Trails Day Event - June 3rd

Our friends at the SCOPE Health Council are hosting an event at Box Canyon for National Trails Day. We'll have guided bike rides, guided hikes, a trail run, an introduction to bouldering, food trucks and more. Should be a great day, so pencil this one in for Saturday June 3rd! If you're interested in participating please contact us or the SCOPE organizers (info@scopehealthcouncil.com)

City of Socorro Secures State Land Lease

 The City of Socorro is supporting our outdoor recreation community with the recent execution of an outdoor recreation lease of 640 acres adjacent to Box Canyon. You can read a nice little article about it in the Defensor Chieftain.

The areas included in the lease are shown in the figure below. You can see the Blue Canyon, Black Canyon and Gramont Peak trails just above the lease area. 

We're really happy that the city government has chosen to participate in this formal capacity in developing outdoor recreation around Socorro. We'll be working with our partners in the City on the 'stewardship plan' that proposes the development of trails, climbing areas, and other amenities within the leased lands. If you have ideas and want to engage in that process, please contact us. 

Descansos Trail Build - Day #1 Done!

Wow! The Socorro trail crew steps up again - 50 volunteers with six crew leads built the first half mile of the Descansos Trail at Box Canyon. We were mostly too busy with trail tools in our hands to take photos, but here are a few highlights.

Fifty volunteers muster for the safety briefing before the work starts. 

The next generation of trail stewards!

The next generation at work!

Proud crew show off their work building a key section of tread through a boulder field. 

More photos from Nick's Crew here. 

More photos from Francie, Steven, Justin and others here. 

Volunteer Trail Build Day - Saturday March 4th

Our BLM friends have secured approval for our next trail out at Box Canyon and would like to hold a volunteer build day on Saturday March 4th (in two weeks!). Please spread the word and consider pitching in if you're available.

You can see our work area in the image below. We will start at the parking lot west of Black Canyon, hike up Gramont Peak Trail to the ridge, and then start working our way north. 

The plan is to have our work briefing at 9am and wrap up around 1pm. The BLM will provide trail tools and we'll have burritos delivered for a lunch break!

If you're willing to pitch in, please contact us (link to the right) so we can generate a headcount. We'll also send out more detailed information to volunteers the week before. 

Thanks everyone! This is going to be a really fantastic hiking/biking trail, perhaps our best yet, and I think you'll love it too. 

La Jornada Ultramarathon is coming on February 25th!

 

La Jornada De Las Quebradas is a 53 km ultramarathon through the rugged, colorful desert landscapes east of Socorro. Registration is open and the race takes place on February 23rd. Come join us for a brutal (but fun) race!

Socorro Trails & Trailhead Plan out for Public Comment

The BLM has been working diligently to expand and formalize our Socorro area trail network and they've put out the trail plan for public comment. This is a critical juncture - we need as many supportive comments on the trail plan as possible to make this happen. 

The plan is expansive - it formalizes and develops the Socorro Single Track segments that are on the BLM, adds new trail loops connecting off Blue Canyon Trail and around the Box, and even formalizes the Chupadera Crossing Loop too. We'd protect what we have today and get 20 miles of new hike/bike/equestrian trails and up to five developed trailheads if this goes ahead!

Please submit feedback; you can submit your comments here: 

https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2022862/595

Gramont Peak is Official

Gramont Peak was officially named in late 2022 after Bertrand (Bert) Gramont (1958-1996) who was a Tech graduate student (MS 1990 in E&ES) and also the climbing instructor.  Bert was from France, and he helped introduce safe sport climbing to The Box with bolt-protected routes.  The BLM recently marked the peak, so make sure to go sign in on the peak log. You can also add your own contributions for way-markers to popular climbing spots 😄

There's a nice little article in the Defensor Chieftain about it if you're interested.