Editor’s Note: This post is contributed by one of RPL’s Ambassadors, Sara Aranda. All photos are by another RPL Ambassador, Ti Eversole. Sara is a creative writer and trail runner who is passionate about craft, community, and challenging the way we use language. Ti is a Diné (Navajo) endurance athlete, storyteller, photographer, and outdoor brand strategist.
A Legacy of Recreation
Clouds spilled over the edge of Tsoodził’s (Mt. Taylor) caldera, shrouding the outer slopes of the dormant stratovolcano. Having already completed 23 miles through a morning of cold, intermittent rain, the first runners of the 13th annual Mt. Taylor 50K appeared from the cloak, making their way to the 11,305-foot summit.
Tsoodził, which means Turquoise or Blue Bead Mountain in Navajo, is the southern sacred peak of Dinétah, the Diné/Navajo homeland. These are also the traditional homelands of the Acoma, Zuni, Laguna, and the Hopi.
There is another, older race that also takes place on this mountain, the Mt. Taylor Quadrathlon. Approaching its 43rd year, it involves ascending and descending Tsoodził all the way from the city of Grants via biking, running, skiing, and snowshoeing. The Quad and the 50K have become iconic events for Cibola County.
Grants (2024 population: 8,880) is the largest city in the immediate area and is set along the Trail of the Ancients Scenic Byway and Route 66. There are many small communities nearby, such as Bluewater Village, Milan, and San Mateo—all places that became recognized within the context of Western Expansion as either railway logging camps, Mormon settlements, or Hispanic religious outposts in the late 1800s, and have since become tight-knit, blue-collar communities. While outdoor recreation is now a massive, formal industry for the U.S., locals have felt they’ve always been a part of the outdoors, whether it generates community income or not.
Gilbert Turner and his wife, Sherri, grew up in the area and are the race directors for the Bluewater Canyon Trail Race, a relatively new race. They say Bluewater itself has seen an outdoor recreation boom thanks to work by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Cibola Trail Alliance to improve and develop trails.
“Growing up and even now, ‘mountain rides,’ ‘let’s go to the mountains,’ ‘on the mountain’—these are common phrases, never ‘let’s go to the mall’,” said Turner. “Hunters come from far and wide looking for a trophy, off-roaders come for overlanding trips, and the [Colorado Divide Trail] is always active.”
However, Turner expressed that based on the past few years, there may be less excitement surrounding the Mt. Taylor Quadrathlon. “[Because of] climate change, there’s seldomly snow for the ski and snowshoe portions, and that seems to turn people away,” he said. Additionally, while it may be true that outdoor recreation has become a national, trillion-dollar industry, Turner laments that the area “doesn’t gain much economically from outdoor recreation,” at least on the scale that other places have seen.
“All that can be sold as good here is going to be jobs,” he added, “In poverty-stricken places like ours, jobs are at the forefront of importance, and outdoor recreation will not provide the number of jobs needed.” Despite this, Turner remains optimistic and acknowledged increasing action on behalf of the city of Grants and other organizations, such as the Trail Alliance and Cibola Outdoors, to promote and prioritize outdoor recreation development.
Jesse Armijo and his wife, Arlene, are the race directors for the Mt. Taylor 50K, and spoke with optimism about the growing industry presence in the area. “I think the city of Grants can be further revitalized and showcased with marquee events throughout the year,” said Armijo, “With a few more big events, it could really boost the local economy just as some other events have made small towns a destination [for outdoor] vacation.” One example of this is Leadville, Colorado, which was once exclusively a mining town but is now a premier destination for recreation tourism, and is where the prestigious Leadville 100 ultramarathon race is held every summer.
In 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began offering Recreational Economies for Rural Communities (RERC) grants, and, fittingly, Grants, NM, was one of the recipients. The city’s RERC proposal states that the entire Four Corners region, which the city is considered to be a part of, has some of the nation’s highest poverty and unemployment rates, which the designated Grants RERC steering committee acknowledged as a challenge to address in their drive to benefit from the value of outdoor rec.
Les Gaines, a Grants local who works closely with both Cibola Outdoors and Cibola Trail Alliance, said, “Grants is right at the cusp of becoming a destination location. We don’t need all the people that you have in Durango, but if we had just a piece of the pie, it would really help our economy.” He also talked about how there is impetus to rework (or develop new) trails to now accommodate mountain bikers and equestrian riders in addition to hikers, something that is not just a response to growing recreation interests, but also a testament to the impacts of the RERC grant and other local initiatives to drive and measure trail use.
Grants, in addition to being on the aforementioned Route 66 and Trail of the Ancients, is also on the Backcountry Discovery Route for New Mexico and along the route for the Great Continental Divide Motorcycle Ride. Grants also borders El Malpais National Monument. The Tour de Acoma takes place nearby, which is a multi-distance cycling event on the Acoma Pueblo Reservation. The recreation opportunities for Cibola and nearby counties are surprisingly vast for a region that doesn’t get the economic attention it needs. The reasons for this might have to do with a different kind of legacy altogether.
A Legacy of Mining
The San Mateo Creek Basin, whose namesake creek flows from the northern flanks of Tsoodził, is known for being at the center of the Grants Mining District (also known as the Grants Mineral Belt), and thus, is part of one of the nation’s most transformative (and controversial) legacies: uranium.
In 1950, uranium mining and processing took over the region. Combined with other mining efforts across the Navajo Nation, the entire Grants uranium district produced more uranium ore than any other U.S. mining district during the Cold War Period (1947-1989). As impressive as that may have been, the collateral damage dealt is a tragic stain upon U.S. history.
According to a study of Grants Uranium District origins published in 2025 by the National Library of Medicine and written by Thomas De Pree, Ph.D., “More than ninety-eight percent of what was mined remains on site as toxic mine wastes, overburden, and mill tailings—in a landscape fractured by underground mine workings, punctured by exploratory boreholes, and saturated with the liquid waste discharged from the uranium mines and mills. Designated as a national ‘sacrifice zone,’ the former mining district constitutes egregious cases of environmental injustice and racism, as well as deeper impositions of settler colonialism.”
Gaines used to work in the uranium industry, and his son currently works at the local, active coal mine. He stated that no matter what side of the mining conversation one may currently be on, no one argues that much of what happened in the past was tragic.
The uranium boom fizzled out in the 1980s and left Grants with economic fallout and long-term health issues. Yet, there are things happening today that bring the community to an interesting crossroads: renewed mineral interests solicited by the Trump administration.
Current Affairs
In March of 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order to accelerate domestic mineral production by addressing regulations that hinder approval (i.e., environmental reviews), by expediting the permitting process (i.e., de facto limiting of public comment periods), by increasing access to federally managed public lands via identifying places with valuable mineral content, and by changing land use definitions to prioritize extraction over other things like recreation, sustenance gathering, conservation, and even cultural preservation. Uranium was added to the U.S. Government’s list of critical materials back in 2018, and thus, uranium’s resurgence has been nearly guaranteed.
There are companies exploring uranium prospects in the Grants area, or have been for some time, and are now receiving a renewed, prioritized boost. Currently, the U.S. imports the majority of its uranium, and it has been this way since the 1990s. Without further inquiry to community members and local Tribes, it is too difficult at this time to determine what the majority opinion is regarding the possible return of the uranium industry to the region.
“The intersection between outdoor rec and mining will be so far apart,” Gaines felt, “because the uranium belt is out in the lower lands, north of Grants, and a lot of it is on private land.” The key phrase he used was “a lot,” but not all, and one example is the Roca Honda site, which is on public land managed by the U.S. Forest Service. Furthermore, with recent (and repeated) efforts by the Trump administration and some members of Congress to weaken environmental protections or even sell off public lands, there is uncertainty about such things remaining “far apart” from the public, if they can be considered far to begin with. Any public lands bordering private land could easily be a hunting area or a place for sustenance gathering, and given that landscapes do not cater to fencelines nor mapped boundaries, there will inevitably be downstream or downwind impact from mining activity.
“The past should be enough to show us that [uranium mining] is a bad idea. Cancer is very common in the communities surrounding the mines and water quality is already poor. The wealthy will get richer, the poor will have a job for a while and then the communities will be left with the mess,” said Turner. Given that the majority of the companies soliciting uranium permits are foreign entities, Turner’s sentiments appear to hold significant weight. Energy Fuels, the largest uranium company soliciting in the region, is Canadian.
What Turner said earlier about jobs still presents itself as the undeniable lure and a crux for those not wanting the mines to return. If we look again at Leadville, CO, one so valued as being an outdoor tourism success story, it’s important to equally hold that there is still an active molybdenum mine to the north, and it is the largest employer in the city’s county.
Will this be the future of Grants and Cibola County as well, where both mining and outdoor recreation will coexist, or will they have to fight over land use rights if the current temperament of the Federal Government continues? Why does the government feel we need more uranium?
One reason has to do with AI data centers fueled by nuclear energy. There is also a resurgence of the viability of nuclear power plants in general, and it appears the Trump administration has had something else in mind as well: a return to nuclear weapons testing.
With so much volatility in the political scene and how quickly regulations can flip-flop, it is nonetheless comforting to see people focusing on what they can control instead. “I just did a survey for the [Northern New Mexico] Council of Governments, they’re doing an economic study, and I still think the most viable thing we have that can help us quickly is outdoor rec,” said Gaines.
For many in Cibola County, promoting public lands is not only personally meaningful work but an important means of resistance. “Weirdly,” said Turner, “getting people out on public lands using the land is what keeps it relevant to the entities who have operational control over them. If nobody uses the land, it becomes trashed and forgotten.” By use, Turner is referring to the all-encompassing umbrella of recreation, and to his point, the less recreation, the more inevitable the selling of the land to private industry may become.
Stephanie Dressen, a Diné/Apache runner who participated in the 50K, raised her three kids in Bluewater Village but has since moved to Southwest Colorado. “I thought about my ancestors and relatives who were making their way back home from Hwéeldi (Fort Sumner),” she said. “Oral stories say that Tsoodził could be seen from afar […] when those who were held captive at Hwéeldi were released and journeying back to our homelands. This mountain was the first sign they were getting close to home. [It] was profound while I was on my run.” For the hours spent on the course that day, she said, with much reverence, “I was home.”
Things You Can Do
What is happening in the Grants, NM region is a story playing out in similar places throughout the country. Whether in the former coal mining towns of Appalachia or oil drilling boomtowns in the West, outdoor recreation and conservation are often at odds with extractive industries, notably in communities adjacent to public lands utilized for industry.
The Trump administration is not only pushing for an expansion of oil drilling and mining on federal public lands but also logging. Last year, the administration began a process of rescinding the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which currently protects millions of acres of national forest land from industrial activities and permanent road-building. Similarly, the administration is proposing to rescind the Bureau of Land Management’s Public Land Rule, which sets conservation and restoration as coequal with other uses such as drilling and mining. Runners for Public Lands has opposed these rollbacks of public land protections along with other proposals to weaken the National Environmental Policy Act and climate regulations.
Runners (and everyone else) need clean air and water as well as access to runnable landscapes. Races like the Mt. Taylor 50K thrive on intact landscapes rather than among quarries, mill tailings, logged forests, or oil wells. You can sign up for our email list to find out about opportunities to speak up for public lands and your favorite trails. If you are a race director, you can join the RPL Race Director Collective and join other RDs across the country on joint letters to the administration or to Congress about specific issues affecting national forests and other public lands. The running community is one of the largest outdoor recreation groups in the country, and our collective voice has the power to make positive change for the places we choose to move through.
Featured Image: Located along Historic Route 66 in the heart of Grants, this mural is one of many initiatives led by the Grants Mainstreet Project, a non-profit focused on revitalizing and beautifying the small boom & bust town while offering a glimpse into its diverse history. Photo by Ti Eversole
This piece made possibly with support from our New Mexico-based, brand coalition partner B.Wild.