Where, Oh Where, Have My Trails Gone

Here’s an entertaining article, “Turns out the Natural Arch really does exist”, by Matt Hietala, former Los Alamos Monitor Sports Editor, on the culmination of his quest to find the fabled Natural Arch. Reading articles about Hietala’s misadventures while trying to climb up to the Arch, 12 Los Alamos residents offered to lead him right to it. Hietala ended up going with Craig Martin, author of “Los Alamos Trails” and head of Los Alamos County Open Space, and John Hogan, a member of the Volunteer Task Force formed after the Cerro Grande fire. I learned something new rereading the newspaper article: Hietala had received a “hand-drawn map from Carl Buckland Jr.” Hietala writes that “On Buckland's map he noted a crawl-through rock and an ensuing trail some 35 yards away. Hogan and I went looking for it, found it and kept climbing up another 500 feet or so onto another bench that further opened up the landscape. We could have kept going, too, over a ridge top and eventually onto Guaje Ridge and to the reservoir, all from going up and over rather than around on Mitchell Trail.” I always just went up to the Arch and then back down, never knowing that there was lots more to explore!

For information about the eventual reopening of the Los Alamos Reservoir, this April 5, 2006 article “County eyes reopening of reservoir for public”, by Darryl Newman, Monitor Staff Writer, gives some interesting details on just how complicated the reopening of the reservoir has become. The Los Alamos County took over ownership of the dam in 2001 when the water system was transferred from the Department of Energy to the county. When the county assumed ownership, the dam then came under the jurisdiction of the Office of the State Engineer. In 2005, the State Engineer devised new regulations that “require a comprehensive design report that documents the capacity and integrity of every dam under its jurisdiction and also establish criteria for classifying dams as ‘high hazard, significant hazard or low hazard.’ ” The county is hoping that the State Engineer will classify the dam as a low hazard dam. The local ice skating rink is the main improvement that is downstream from the dam.

According to the newspaper article, the Los Alamos County Council has approved spending almost $240,000 “for studies and a design report, design drawings and partial construction under a lump sum payment from Los Alamos County to URS Corporation.” The total budget for the project is one million dollars.

The council is aiming to reopen the reservoir to the public in Summer 2007. That will be wonderful when folks can enjoy that area again. It’s been a long time!!

Actually, when I wrote about the Mitchell Trail having been rehabilitated, I was only half right. A Los Alamos Monitor article on November 14, 2005, “Once believed lost, the Guaje Ridge Trail returns”, by Craig Martin, as a “Special to the Monitor”, gives the true story. In six weeks, 30 volunteers and an Espanola Ranger District crew made the Guaje Ridge Trail, which was in the severe burn area, accessible again. Craig Martin says that when he looked at the Guaje Ridge Trail soon after the Cerro Grande fire, it was still easy to follow but then rain and wind caused severe erosion and large numbers of downed trees. Due to the distance of the trail from town, more than 2 miles, working on it seemed an insurmountable task. The Espanola Ranger District evaluated both the Mitchell Trail and the Guaje Ridge Trail and quotes the trail crew supervisor, Craig Saum, as saying "Many folks would've called those two trails 'goners”. The Espanola Ranger District was able to get $5,000 of National Fire Plan monies to rehabilitate the trail. It’s not clear at all from reading the article if the Mitchell Trail was rehabbed.