It’s not often that a disparate collection of governmental agencies, private businesses, land lessees and owners and recreational organizations can come together to deliver a positive outcome that helps everyone.
That’s why an upcoming ribbon cutting, July 29, near Canjilon is such a big deal, Roger Pattison, president of the New Mexico Off-Highway Vehicle Alliance said.
“The collaboration is the only way we get these things done,” he said. “It’s a team effort. The list of partners has gotten fairly long.”
The NMOHVA recently completed a project three years in the making that cobbled together financial resources from the U.S. Forest Service, New Mexico Game & Fish, the New Mexico Economic Development Department’s Outdoor Recreation Division and vehicle manufacturer Polaris.
When it was complete, nine new cattle guards were placed on popular, rural off-highway routes, replacing gates that too frequently were left in the wrong position, Pattison said.
A supervisor for the Carson National Forest got the ball rolling, he said, by contacting the NMOHVA after too many gates were left open that should have been closed or vice versa.
“They discovered that the west zone of the Carson National Forest, the El Rito, Abiquiú and Canjilon area was becoming very popular for side-by-sides,” Pattison said. “OHV riders were coming there with big groups. When that happens, things get noticed and that’s what happened in this case.”
It was a case of being a bit too popular.
“People were getting off the trail and playing in muddy areas where they didn’t belong,” he said. “And big groups would go through the gates and by the time the last person was going through, nobody could remember if the gate should have been closed or open. And they were usually getting it wrong.”
This resulted in cattle ending up where they were not supposed to be.
Forest Service officials “wanted to find a better solution that’s not the typical one of closing trails,” he said. “We thought it was a pretty easy fix and offered to go get grant money to put in cattle guards. They thought that was a good idea.”
The Forest Service kicked it off with $10,000 in seed money and Game & Fish added $20,000. Then the Outdoor Recreation Department through its Trails+ grant program, contributed $60,000 and finally, Polaris added $10,000 for an initial $100,000 pool.
And that’s just so much different than the way things used to work, Pattison said
“Typically, we had to file lawsuits and be involved in controversial attempts to prevent trail closures by public land managers,” he said. “For a long time it seemed like we were just fighting a lot of attempts to close routes. We did file several lawsuits and fought them long and hard for years.”
The ribbon cutting “will let everyone know what success can look like,” Pattison said. “The more we get the word out, agencies will call us for solutions. It’s becoming a trend. Instead of picking fights, we’re being called on to get answers and that’s a good feeling.”
The cattle guards were set in a large road and trail system covering about 40 miles the Forest Service identified as the most critical and effective sites where either pastures changed on grazing allotments, or the area passed from one lessee to another.
And while this is a strong first step, Pattison said there is plenty of work to be done in the area.
“There could be 20 to 30 more locations and we’ll just get to them as we can,” he said. “East of Canjilon, there are some areas that for sure need attention. But times have changed. Public land managers realize that we have solutions that are different than just closing trails for convenience.”