Stable owners host barbecue to thank youth trail crews
Stable owners thanked Youth Conservation Corps crews with barbecue after the young workers spent summer grading, draining and clearing Los Alamos trails.
Trail riders from the Los Alamos Stable Owners Association hosted a barbecue Thursday for the Youth Conservation Corps crew, turning a meal into public thanks for the people who spend the summer keeping Los Alamos County trails usable. The gathering reflected a practical local reality: when paths are blocked, washed out or choked by brush, hikers, riders and other users feel it quickly.
The Youth Conservation Corps program is run by The Family YMCA in Los Alamos at 1450 Iris St. and is described in program materials as a grant-funded summer jobs program for youth and young adults ages 14 to 25. A YMCA reference form says the work is mostly trail work, including maintaining existing trails by adjusting grading, improving water diversion and trimming shrubs and branches, along with building new trails. The YMCA said the 2026 summer trail work ran from June 1 through July 24, with applications due by April 17 at 6 p.m.
That work sits inside a larger county system. Los Alamos County’s Open Space & Trails materials say the county oversees more than 5,000 acres of public land threaded throughout Los Alamos. The county assumed active management of the trail network in 2003 after the Open Space Task Force recommended it and the County Council approved it, and the Trail Management Plan was revised in 2022. The county also entered Stage 2 fire restrictions on May 28, 2026 because of dry conditions and high winds, another reminder that trail access here is tied to land stewardship and safety.
For the stable owners, the thank-you barbecue connected directly to how they use the land. North Mesa Stables offers trail riding, dressage, and both Western and English riding, so passable trails matter to horse owners as much as they do to hikers. The association has also shown up in other stewardship efforts, including the Adopt-A-Road cleanup of North Mesa Park Road in October 2025. A 2019 local report said signs in the North Mesa Stables area ask visitors to respect animals and property, underscoring how closely recreation and care for shared space are linked there.
The barbecue offered the crew more than a plate of food. It put faces to the work that keeps Los Alamos trails open and showed how seasonal youth labor, county planning and volunteer effort overlap in a town where open space is part of everyday recreation.
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