Tuesday, August 22, 2017

New Mexico: Horse owners, mountain bikers square off at meeting

LAMonitor.com - Full Article

By Tris DeRoma
Monday, August 21, 2017

A public discussion about a network of trails around the North Mesa Stables took a sharp turn Wednesday when county officials gave an update on a proposed “flow” trail meant exclusively for mountain bikers.

After County Parks and Recreation officials gave a brief update about the proposed flow trail, residents who attended the meeting debated whether the trail was a good idea at all.

According to county officials, the trail, if built, would parallel and intersect an existing popular horseback riding and hiking trail in Bayo Canyon.

“I think it’s a really bad idea to put it here,“ said resident Bruce Warren. “I think the county needs to reopen negotiation about installing a trial flow trail on the ski hill, which is where it really belongs, it’s a recreational type facility. It’s not really a trail in the sense of what we know is a trail.”

A proponent and founder of the flow trail idea said it couldn’t go on Pajarito Mountain because the ski area is privately owned.

Lisa Reader, an avid horseback rider and leader in the local riding community, thought the flow trail needs to be somewhere else too, that horse owners are slowly getting squeezed out of the recreational trail picture.

“I support multiple use as a concept. Our community is very small geographically, we only have a small footprint to work in, we don’t need to be fussing and fighting with each other. But, I will say that we are out here for good, and we keep getting squeezed and squeezed,” Reader said. “There’s so few places we can safely access anymore, so this (plan) is an eyeopener to us. This is the one trail we have easy access to and now they’re going to make it potentially unsafe...”

Read more here:
http://www.lamonitor.com/content/horse-owners-mountain-bikers-square-meeting

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