Making a Difference and Connecting Communities via Trails in the San Luis Valley, Colorado
By Patrick Ortiz, Operations Director for the San Luis Valley Great Outdoors and HCLC member from Colorado.
Five years ago, I joined the San Luis Valley Great Outdoors (SLV GO) as an operations director. This non-profit organization was formed in 2013 just as a roundtable discussion between land managers, city officials, educators, and local community leaders, who wanted to increase recreation opportunities for people of the San Luis Valley and make connections between communities across the six-county in this region with over 8,000 square miles of mountains, deserts, rivers, and forests.
The goal was to achieve that via trails and outdoor recreation. It started in the early 2010s with a project to build about 30 miles of trail on the Bureau of Land Management’s land just outside the town of Del Norte, which was completed by 2015-2016.
This collective initiative gained 501(c)(3) status in 2018. Now, we have a growing list of more than 140 volunteers, over 40 partners, and incredible community-driven projects that empower and serve the people of San Luis Valley while balancing conservation and recreation.
Through locals, we can activate open spaces that people are already recreating but have some needs, such as good signage for instance. With different partners, we create an inventory of culturally and ecologically essential open spaces across the valley to promote and protect them.
Although the San Luis Valley has one of lower-income averages not just in Colorado but in the country, it has abundant natural resources and public spaces with tremendous potential for tourism development and a robust outdoor recreational economy.
Through the San Luis Valley Generation Wild coalition, we offer environmental education opportunities, employment, workforce development, and a variety of outdoor experiences–like hunting, fly fishing, mountain biking, rock climbing, and river floating- for kids, youth and all members of the community.
In the San Luis Valley region, half of the population is Hispanic, and a good portion exclusively speaks Spanish. We also have a significant Mayan community that works in agriculture and warehouses here. We at SLV GO ensure culturally relevant opportunities for these communities.
You don’t have to have a mountain bike, skis, or outdoor equipment to be considered outdoorsy. It is essential to recognize and promote other ways to experience the outdoors. Nature photography, getting firewood, picking piñón with the family, and other traditional uses on our public lands are still relevant to local communities.
Another initiative we're working on is the Great Outdoors Action Team, or the Goats, to hire locally professional trail crews and help the BLM and Forest Service with trail maintenance and campground improvements while being mindful of the needs of all members of our community, including those with mobility impairment.
The employment of the youth crews provides students leadership opportunities to start building their resume and gain work experience in potential careers in the outdoors, conservation, and natural resources management.
Through this program, we've also helped build about 30 miles of trail in communities across the San Luis Valley, helping different municipalities with added capacity to make that happen by integrating local youth corps crews.
One of our team members, Esteban Salazar, is a health and wellness coordinator who works with local health providers in the San Luis Valley to prescribe outdoor time to all patients as part of a wellness program.
Esteban also leads Embajadores, a program with bilingual Latino outdoor leaders and mountain bikers who do weekly rides for the community and do outreach with the Spanish-speaking and Mayan-speaking communities.
Lastly, our initiative called Revitalize the Rio has brought together almost 150 stakeholders to activate the Rio Grande Corridor in Alamosa by building and expanding trails along the river and increasing weekend programs where people can just rent out tubes and paddleboards, which help to drive more people to the outdoors, support local economies and attract more recreation businesses.
There is so much going on in the San Luis Valley. We want our community to get outdoors, take advantage of the opportunities available, and get involved through these programs that welcome everyone!
For more information, visit https://slvgo.com/ and https://www.slvgenwild.com/our-partners.