{"id":71357,"date":"2016-12-03T01:57:17","date_gmt":"2016-12-03T08:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/county-explores-trail-to-montrose\/"},"modified":"2016-12-03T08:57:17","modified_gmt":"2016-12-03T08:57:17","slug":"county-explores-trail-to-montrose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/county-explores-trail-to-montrose\/","title":{"rendered":"County explores trail to Montrose"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Courtesy
Courtesy of Over The Edge Sports<br><br>Mountain bikers can find thrills on the rim of high canyon walls of a trail system near Fruita that eventually connect with Moab. Montezuma County has dreams of connecting a trail to Montrose and the Rimrocker Trail, which connects with Moab. When combined with the Kokopelli Trail, riders could ride backcountry roads and trails from Grand Junction to Cortez.<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Montezuma County commissioners have requested that the Bureau of Land Management work with them on an idea to create a backcountry recreation route from Cortez to Montrose.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Larry Don Suckla, an avid cyclist, is keen on the idea of linking the county to the multiuse Rimrocker Trail, a 160-mile route that connects Montrose with Moab, Utah, on back roads, ATV routes and trails.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of BLM land in between here and Montrose, so I see that as an opportunity to connect us with Moab,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Suckla pointed out that from Moab, riders could continue on the popular Kokopelli Trail, a 140-mile mountain bike route to Loma, near Grand Junction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to work with the various counties to figure out a trail alignment. We could have a trail system that connects Cortez with Grand Junction,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Connie Clementson, field manager for the BLM\u2019s Tres Rios office, said the agency is open to proposals.<\/p>\n

Suckla envisions a combination of single-track, public land roads, and side by side ATV trails to allow for multiple use recreation. County staff was directed to begin looking into possible routes.<\/p>\n

The county is advocating for an expanded local outdoor recreation economy, including a proposed 17-mile trail from Cortez to Mancos and for additional trails at Phil\u2019s World, east of Cortez.<\/p>\n

Mountain biking is a key component of a surging recreation industry that contributes an estimated $641 billion per year to the U.S. economy, according to the Outdoor Industry Association.<\/p>\n

The Rimrocker Trail provides four-wheel drive, OHV, and mountain biking access through a landscape of remote redrock canyons, winding rivers, desert vistas and alpine forests. Large portions of the trail are rough, narrow, and steep, especially the section from Nucla to Moab.<\/p>\n

For more information go to rimrockertrail.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

connect Cortez, Junction<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,657,13,700,109,976],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-71357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-cycling","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-moab","tag-montezuma-county-commissioner","tag-outdoor-recreation"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71357"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=71357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}