National Trails Day on our trail

Mark your calendars for June 4th this year, and join us for a History Trail celebration at 11am. We’ll have traditional treats, music, and guest experts to add to the fun of walking this .6m route. Meet at the Welcome sign at Questa’s only traffic light. Wear sun-protection and sturdy shoes. See you there!

Finally we can celebrate!

Mark your calendars for a safe, outdoor event! After pausing for a year, we decided we can’t wait any longer to formally introduce our interpretive signage to all of you. Though we will have a small detour until the church parking lot is finished, all the signs will be accessible, all our experts on hand, and hopefully the weather welcomes us like it did for our trial walk in 2018 that 75 guests attended. We will mark National Trails Day on Saturday, June 5th, with historian Flavio Cisneros leading a FREE guided walk of our half-mile route. Discover a microcosm of northern New Mexico’s past! Meet at Questa’s intersection; (highways 522 and 38) at 11am.

A Great Time to Work Behind the Scenes!

One silver lining to pandemic delays is that many categories of long-awaited work is being done by those away from their usual roles. The late-summer of 2020 is seeing the engineering of our historic church’s parking lot. This work to mitigate drainage issues has been envisioned since the completion of the church restoration, and will be a huge benefit to parishioners and History Trail walkers alike.

What this means for the moment, however, is that the full route of the trail is interrupted as it passes around the church, and the informational signage by the acequia crossing is not available. (Though the long-awaited new bridge is in place between the church and the Parish Center!) With a much-abbreviated celebration once planned for Labor Day, we will now await the completion of this work, re-assess, hope we have all stayed well during this worrisome time, and will announce far and wide the opening of the full trail route!

Temporary delay…

Our spring construction has been delayed due to the Corona-virus emergency. Our team members are doing as much as they can from home and in their workshops, but our hoped-for Grand Opening on June’s National Trail’s Day has been postponed.

As soon as our volunteer crew can safely assemble; we will be installing the new bridge across the acequia between the church and the parish center, and rebuilding the steps on either side. Additionally, we still have some brick-work to install at each sign, and the final placement of our directional markers to confirm.

Thank you for all your patience and support. Watch for the latest news, and we hope you can join up for our much-anticipated ribbon-cutting at a later date this summer!

Almost done…progress on the trail!

It’s been another busy year of fundraising, grant-writing, and planning for our diverse team. The summer of 2019 saw a series of events co-hosted by the Questa History Trail and the BLM. These took place out at the Wild Rivers area of our Rio Grande del Norte National Monument; a wonderful series that we hope becomes an annual one!
Meanwhile, other team members designed our new sign faces, compared new long-lasting frameworks, wrote and edited our new sign content – using much feedback from our 2018 events.
The new signs arrived in August and were installed by more team members, with route arrows added for ease of walking the ‘trail’. What we have not yet completed is the bridge across the acequia at sign #5. So please use caution here if you bushwhack across, or detour to the narrow, steep Cisneros rd. as you make your way to sign #6. Our team members will be completing this work soon, as their work schedules allow.
We plan to host our official Ribbon Cutting in the spring of 2020!
None of this work would’ve been possible without the support of the Northern Rio Grande National Heritage Area! The US Forest Service lent their archaeologist advisor, and Chevron gave generously. Many other supporters were invaluable. Please see all the names on our new Welcome Sign and elsewhere on this site.

2019-work, update!

Thank you to all our neighbors and visitors who have offered feedback in the last year!

We are working to update our sign text and manufacture long-lasting sign faces and metal sign bases.

We also hope to add some directional signage and make the path thoroughly and continuously walkable with added features to add to attractiveness along the way.

Watch for the next stage of this to be completed by the end of this summer, 2019.

Thank you for your patience and your support!

The Questa History Trail Team

Back by popular demand; guided History Walk!

If you missed our trail’s inauguration on June 2nd, for National Trails Day, here’s your chance to see what all the excitement was about.

Questa’s Studio Art Tour weekend is the occasion for a repeat performance.  Local historian, Flavio Cisneros, will lead a walk of our new trail, and add his personal anecdotes to the informative signs and public art displayed along this half-mile route.  Within a short distance, you’ll find a microcosm of northern New Mexico’s history.

Join the fun on Saturday morning, 10am, Aug. 18th.  Meet at the plazuela at the traffic light.  See you there!

(and, as usual, we are grateful to the Northern Rio Grande National Heritage Area, the New Mexico Humanities Council, the Nat’l Park Service, and our local sponsors and QCC members! Thank you!)

Community Memory Workshop in Questa July 8, 2018

Questa History and Community Trail presents a workshop by native son of Questa and former New Mexico State Historian Dr. Estevan Rael-Galvez entitled “Gathering Memory: Object, Photos and Story.” You are invited to bring a photograph, object, or story that holds personal meaning. Come to Questa’s VFW Hall on Sunday, July 8, at 2 pm. Free event; light refreshments. More info call (575) 586-5692.

Two trail events this summer!

National Trails Day, Questa History Walk
Saturday, June 2nd, 2018, 10:30am

Not all trails are in the woods! Join local historian Flavio Cisneros for a walk of the Questa History & Community Trail.  A 5000-year timeline highlights rare geologic features, Hispano and multi-cultural settlements, Native life and conflicts, frontier religious devotion, orchards and arts.  Discover a microcosm of northern New Mexico history on a .6m loop.

This inaugural walk is a chance for residents and visitors to offer feedback and questions about each topic highlighted, and each trail surface proposed.  This, prior to the final, permanent structures being built in 2019.

Meet at the plazuela at Questa’s traffic light, corner of hwy. 522 & 38.   FREE

Brought to you in part by: New Mexico Humanities Council, Northern Rio Grande National Heritage Area, and the National Park Service

Gathering Memory: Object, Photo and Story Workshop
Sunday, July 8th, 2018, 2pm

Former New Mexico State Historian, Dr. Estevan Rael-Gálvez will give a presentation on history and memory and lead the community though a memoir workshop. Participants are asked to arrive with: an object that holds a special memory about a person, event or place, a photograph that could be used to tell a story, and the name of one ancestor whose life holds special meaning.

VFW Hall, 1.6m north of the traffic light in Questa, on Highway 522.  FREE

Brought to you in part by: New Mexico Humanities Council, Northern Rio Grande National Heritage Area, and the National Park Service

 

February 27th, 2018 walking audit

We’d like to invite all to join us in Questa tomorrow, Tuesday, February 27th, from 12-3pm (at Rael’s Market and walking around the village).

The Questa History & Community Trail received a National Park Service Rivers, Trails & Conservation Assistance Program Grant. As part of their assistance, we’ll be hosting a walkability audit and open community meeting with our NPS mentor.

Our rough agenda:
12-1pm, welcome and overview of the project and goals
1-2pm, active and outdoors, walkability audit
2-3pm, return and review (reflect, report…)

Hope to see many folks there!