by Elizabeth Miller on
THE 3.5-MILE CIMARRON HERITAGE TRAIL links the Philmont Training Center and Camping Headquarters to historic downtown Cimarrón. This year, conservation staff working for Philmont—with help from some volunteers—plans to widen the trail so people can hike alongside one another, add culverts and bridges to head off erosion, and harden the surface so it will hold up better to wear. The trail is just one of 300 miles of trails maintained at Philmont. Andrea Watson, general manager of the Philmont Scout Ranch, is excited to see what the trail can do for scouts, but also for the community and its shared history.
The trail runs next to NM 21. That highway basically sits on top of the Santa Fe Trail. People have been traveling that trail for generations.
We selected the name because of the history you can see there. There are places on the trail where you can see the ruts—still—from where the wagons would have come down that trail.
You can see Baldy Mountain, the site of the largest gold rush in New Mexico, and Philmont’s bison, depending on how shy they are that day.
You’re looking at the back of the Tooth of Time—cool mountain, looks like a tooth—a marker for folks coming down the Santa Fe Trail. When they saw that, they knew they only had about two weeks until they got to Santa Fe.
There will be three locations where you’ll have information boards. They’ll say, “If you look to your left, you’ll see ruts from the wagon trail, this is how many people came down the trail, and this why it mattered to this area.”
We’ll have a couple community days in August. Local schools are going to come in and help do some work. The chamber of commerce and some other organizations around Cimarrón want to come. It’s been a real asset to the community.
We had some machinery doing some work, but the next step now is more the refining—a lot of handwork and strong backs doing that labor together.
Read more: A new trail in the Galisteo Basin provides access for people of all abilities.