In an effort to design and build-out a statewide recreation trail with the vision and function of similar trails in neighboring states - i.e. The Colorado Trail, The Arizona Trail, Continental Divide Trail - state lawmakers established a Rio Grande Trail commission during the 2015 legislative session. The broad outline here would be for a multi-purpose rec trail running north-south along the Rio from Colorado to Texas.There's a lot of private holdings in this alignment as well as significant Pueblo land throughout the valley so the expectation I'm guessing is that this will be a decades long effort which will likely have several gaps among long sections of contiguous trail over public land. This would still be a very favorable outcome compared with current status. The project also adjoins state and county resources to the small volunteer groups that build trail (generally mtb riders and hikers).
Currently there's a block of federal funding directed toward gathering public opinion, rec-user preferences, and other ideas for how people envision use of such a trail system as well as stuff that would add or detract from the trail experience. A very cool website has been setup for this purpose, a Virtual Open House, where you can read more about the RGT big picture and contribute your own ideas and opinion toward what this thing ought to look like. The ending date is December 11th.
Go there and add your voice to this beauty of a project.
Rio Grande Trail - Virtual Open House (until Dec 11, 2017)
Related Posts:
- West Rim Trail - Taos, NM
- Acequia Trail Underpass Groundbreaking
- Bandelier National Monument and Lummis Canyon
