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On The Right Track

New adventure tours off the Cumbres-Toltec railroad highlight an important wildlife corridor

By Kate Siber

Found in: | Outside | Wilderness | Wildlife |

One overcast June morning in Chama, N.M., the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad slowly lumbered out of the station and up to speed. As it let out an ear-piercing, conversation-stopping whistle, a young boy sitting a few rows up from me turned saucer-eyed with amazement. This, his incredulous expression seemed to say, is a real train, not a toy or a picture in a book or even an old boxcar collecting dust and weeds in a forgotten field. This is a train that goes places.

As the steam engine chugged along, we passed through sun-speckled aspen groves, their young silver-dollar leaves glinting in the sun. Streams rollicked down rocky drainages, and wildflowers peeked into bloom, fighting the adolescent spring grasses for sunshine. Soon the aspen groves turned to broad meadows where old wooden fences and homesteads lay in poetic disrepair, all flanked by steep pine forests - a scene straight out of "Brokeback Mountain," it seemed.

The Cumbres & Toltec narrow-gauge train linked Southwest mining boomtowns with Denver starting in the 1880s. For the last 40 years, however, it has carried a different sort of cargo between the towns of Chama, N.M. and Antonito, Colo.: passengers. They come for the thrill of the raw metal clanging below the old wooden floorboards and the jaw-dropping beauty of the wilderness, rife with free-flowing creeks, ragged mountains, and deep gorges.

Suddenly a cry roared up from the passengers as virtually everyone crowded to the right-side windows. The train groaned under their weight, as they pointed, oohed and aahed at several elk bounding through the meadows, clearing bushes as if nothing more than lines on a sidewalk. The gasps and whispers that percolated up from the crowd made me realize: Elk are a big deal.

At least, that's what Mike Rivera, my guide for the day, would have you know. A Taos dentist, fishing guide, local ranch owner, and de facto environmental activist, Rivera just started offering adventure tours through his company, Brazos Meadows Ranch & Recreation Company, right off the train last year. His goal isn't so much to make cash but rather to show select few visitors a unique wilderness and educate them on its importance and myriad threats.

Rivera knows this land like a brother: His family descended from the conquistadors and has inhabited these hills for some 400 years. Sturdily built with eyes that match the blue-gray sky and a wide, smooth face, Rivera grew up fishing, guiding hunters, and running livestock along the Continental Divide. Above all, he says, elk populations are the lifeblood of this land and a barometer for its overall health.

"They're amazing animals," he said, staring out of the train windows and quietly observing the fuss. "They're way more intelligent than humans and way more interesting." I contemplated his words as I watched the train's passengers - mostly retirees and young families - marvel at the ungulates cantering through a backdrop soaked with the fresh greens of spring.

After about an hour and a half, traveling through increasingly beautiful scenery - verdant hills, deep gorges, and the vestiges of a snowy winter - the conductor stopped the train especially for us. We disembarked at Cumbres, where Rivera's friend and another fishing guide, Phil Caston, waited for us with a truck and a trailer with ATVs.

Caston drove us into the hills of northern New Mexico, turning onto increasingly rough, rutted dirt roads until we came to a stop and unloaded a Side By Side sport utility vehicle. We spent much of the afternoon jostling along dirt tracks through spectacular terrain and prime elk habitat - wide meadows and dispersed forests - in search of a good spot to fish. Meanwhile, Rivera explained the ecological importance of the area.

A patchwork of lands belonging to the Jicarilla Apache, Southern Utes, Ute Mountain Utes, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and private landowners, this area of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado is where the Southern Rockies meet the Colorado Plateau. It's unusually unfragmented and biologically and ecologically diverse, which makes it an important travel corridor for marquis species, such as pronghorn, mule deer, and elk.

Rivera, some other landowners, and plenty of tourists appreciate the wildlife inherently. For others, the fact that they generate at least $3 billion in Colorado and $823 million in New Mexico thanks to hunters, anglers and wildlife watchers, is enough to warrant respect and protection.

However, Rivera says, as much as the views appear blissfully pristine, the land and wildlife face formidable challenges. Though development and subdivision has come later here than other areas of New Mexico and Colorado, it is creeping in, thanks, ironically, to the spectacular scenery and recreational opportunities. Oil and gas development, increasing traffic on highways, and the erection of fences that hamper wildlife movement also affect the wellbeing of these free-roaming animals. In years to come, climate change will alter the landscape in unforeseen ways and force animals to move and adapt. In the meantime, Rivera believes that New Mexico Game & Fish, the government agency that manages hunting, doles out too many hunting permits and doesn't properly manage the harvests.

The good news is that the political climate is ripe for action. In 2007, the Western Governors Association signed a memorandum of understanding to identify key wildlife corridors and make policy changes to help protect them. In 2008, the WGA identified eight pilot projects that would focus their energies on the most important and endangered habitats. The area around the Cumbres & Toltec railroad along the Colorado-New Mexico border was one of them.

In December, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson signed a memorandum of understanding to work together to protect key habitat and migratory corridors over the states' shared border. It's an unusual partnership and has resulted in wildlife agencies in both states working to collect data on wildlife migrations and implement a system that factors in diverse public opinions. Even President Obama, in an April presidential memorandum called America's Great Outdoors, underlined the importance of preserving wildlife habitat.

"People are realizing the importance of connecting wildlife habitat," Monique DiGiorgio, a conservation strategist with the Western Environmental Law Center, told me in an interview. DiGiorgio has advocated for wildlife-corridor management all over the West. "There's a window of opportunity in the next five to 10 years." Because the New Mexico-Colorado border is still relatively unfragmented by development and covers a number of transitions zones and altitudes, animals can move laterally in reaction to global warming, says DiGiorgio. That makes it a high-priority area for conservation.

Meanwhile, Rivera has also helped mobilize private landowners, collectively representing about 1.5 million acres of land in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico, into an advocacy organization called Associated Landowners for Resource Management.

"We are landowners who are also wildlife biologists, scientists, biologists, environmental health and public health backgrounds," Rivera told me. "We are working for sound science and biology for wildlife and wildlife corridors as well as the recognition of the economic importance of this renewable resource we call wildlife."

Tourism is one way of promoting the whole cause, both by raising awareness and funneling money into the hands of those who are helping to protect the area. It's also a prime moment for developing sustainable tour businesses, since the New Mexico Department of Tourism launched a statewide initiative to encourage and develop ecotourism last year.

Admittedly, it didn't seem particularly "eco" to ride around in an ATV, but Rivera argues that many tourists who are interested in seeing wilderness don't have the stamina to travel on their own two feet. To his credit, Rivera plans to keep his trips small-scale and otherwise low-impact, taking a maximum of about 50 people into the wilderness each summer. The train, a novel and antique form of mass transportation, offers access to remote areas, and the conductor will stop for Rivera's groups at roads, in the middle of the wilderness, or even on private lands Rivera has permission to access. Rivera customizes each tour to the group's interests and ability levels, with options for diverse activities, such as fly-fishing, hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding.

That's precisely why I was there, traipsing about the hills of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado that breezy June day: to see what this area has to offer. In the afternoon, in the middle of a sprawling alpine meadow with nary a sign of civilization in sight, Rivera halted the ATV. As he set up a picnic, Caston taught me a quick lesson in fly-casting in a hidden twisting rivulet.

"You get back here and there's great habitat, lots of fish," said Caston, as he tied his fly onto the line. Caston has led an interesting and varied life, working at Capitol Records during the Motown era, working as an event producer, and rafting and fishing all over the West. Now, it seems, he is perfectly happy to make the trout streams of New Mexico his regular haunts. His sense of calm is contagious and I felt remarkably peaceful, sitting there toying with the rod and practicing my casts in the fresh spring air.

"Fly-fishing is a Zen sport," said Caston thoughtfully between casts. "It's all in the preparation and execution. After that, it doesn't really matter what happens."

I took a moment to look around at our surroundings: the valley's meadow sprawled into the hills and there was nothing but blue sky and thin lacey clouds above. It seemed a perfect place to seek a moment of Zen. That, I realized, was precisely Rivera's point. Amidst all the machinations of politicians and landowners and stakeholders, when it comes down to it, enjoying these lands is perhaps most important. That, after all, is how we remind ourselves why we need to protect them.

Writer Kate Siber has celebrated a wedding, spotted elk, cheered on rafters, and taken a snooze on various trains around the West. She writes from Durango, Colo.