Designating 'another world outside of time'

U.S. Rep. Tom Udall leads a push to recognize the 17,638-acre Sabinoso Wilderness

Staci Matlock | The New Mexican

7/4/2008 - 7/5/08

SABINOSO WILDERNESS, N.M. — Sam DesGeorges rested his buckskin horse on a rocky trail midway up a mesa in northeastern New Mexico.

Above and below, jumbled stands of junipers and piñons, cholla cactus and scrub oak grew out of the steep slope. More terra cotta-colored mesas and golden grasslands stretched away to the eastern horizon. When human voices fell silent, only occasional bird song and wind-rustled leaves broke the stillness.

"The only way people can get here is by horse or on foot," DesGeorges said as he looked at the mesa top that forms the southeastern boundary of the proposed 17,638-acre Sabinoso Wilderness.

"It's just you and nature here," said DesGeorges, manager of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Taos Field Office. "There's no cell phone coverage, no roads. If anything happens, you have to depend on your own skills and the skills of people you are with."

The land, most of it managed by the BLM, is about 40 miles east of Las Vegas, N.M., and more than 100 miles from Santa Fe.

To get there, a visitor leaves the Sangre de Cristo mountain folds and starts across the undulating hills of the Great Plains. A couple of different routes reach within a few miles of the proposed wilderness boundaries. Then it is up to the kindness of ranchers to let visitors through gates and onto private roads to reach the public land.

A rutted dirt road takes drivers past cows and abandoned stone homesteads. At the spot where vehicles are left behind in exchange for horses, neither cell phone nor radio station signals reach. Nothing moves except an occasional rabbit or a hawk drifting lazily through the hot summer air. It feels like a time warp.

It is this isolation, where nature's rhythms take over, that makes Sabinoso special.

The mesas within the Sabinoso area rise more than 1,000 feet above the plains on what geologists call the Canadian Escarpment. Chinle shale dating to the Triassic period is crowned with Dakota sandstone from the Cretacious, giving rise to strips of burnished red and gold ringing the mesas. The Sabinoso's northern boundary is marked by the Canadian River. The 1,000-foot-deep Cañon Largo within the proposed wilderness connects to the river and drains water into it from other canyons like Cañon Silva, Cañon Muerto and Cañon Agapito.

Elk, mule deer, turkeys, Swainson's hawks and red-tailed hawks are among the wildlife that make their home among the thick vegetation in Sabinoso. DesGeorges and BLM range manager and wrangler James Harmon spotted the scat sign of a large bear as they rode their horses in the wilderness last week. The two men also have found numerous metates and arrowhead points, signs left centuries ago by other visitors.

The Sabinoso BLM land has been a wilderness study area since the 1970s. Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill sponsored by Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., to formally designate the Sabinoso Wilderness. If approved by the Senate and signed into law, it will become the first BLM-managed wilderness in Northern New Mexico.

Udall has ridden the Sabinoso lands on horseback. "As I began learning about Sabinoso and then came to tour it for myself," he said, "I was struck by the feeling that this area offers something unique to the surrounding communities and to visitors. The Sabinoso makes you feel like you've stepped into another world outside of time. The land, the trees, the animals all seem like they have been there forever."

Vehicles and power tools are prohibited in designated wilderness areas. No improvements are allowed, either. And just because an area is designated wilderness doesn't mean the government has to provide access to it, DesGeorges said. Those issues have created critical challenges for the Sabinoso area. Private land surrounds the proposed wilderness, and some private in-holdings are down in Cañon Largo.

Udall's bill grandfathers in existing grazing rights. About 12 permitees hold leases to graze up to 1,700 head of cattle over the course of a year.

But at least one landowner with a family ranch in Cañon Largo is concerned about how he'll access and maintain the road through the Sabinoso Wilderness to reach his property.

"I don't mind them making it a wilderness area as long as I have vehicle access to my property," said Jim Carter, whose family bought the Cañon Largo ranch in the 1970s before it was a wilderness study area. "Vehicle is the key word here. In other wilderness, they allow access only via horseback or foot. You can't operate a place that way."

Carter, who lives in Rio Rancho, said there's only one road into Cañon Largo, "so if you don't have access to that road, you essentially don't have access to your property." Rain periodically washes out parts of the road or rolls rocks onto it that need to be removed, making Carter concerned about how he'll maintain the road if improvements aren't allowed.

Udall and his staff have worked with local landowners and communities promoting the Sabinoso Wilderness bill. "We created a strong alliance between locals, ranchers, sportsmen, conservationists and the state Legislature to designate it wilderness," Udall said. "We felt a common responsibility to ensure that people who live in the area and their children will be able to use and benefit from the land and experience the same excitement that I felt when I visited."

The Sabinoso Wilderness bill has been supported by a variety of organizations such as the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, the San Miguel County Commission, the Springer and Wagon Mound town councils and the Latino Sustainability Institute.

Harmon has led several horseback trips into the Sabinoso area. He said his favorite spot is a ledge overlooking Cañon Largo where he and others camped out during one excursion.

DesGeorges said his favorite spot is a spring down in a small canyon where moss-covered rocks and small water pools create an oasis.

He said the BLM is working with private landowners to create public access to trail heads around the Sabinoso. People can visit the Sabinoso by contacting the BLM for a list of property owners they can call for permission to use private roads to reach the wilderness.

Contact Staci Matlock at 470-9843 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.