Pinon Canyon Expansion Revisited

The tireless Colorado Representative, Wes McKinley, of House District 64, organized a trailride along the southern border of the Army's Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site on September 26-27, 2009. Riders gathered at the La Quinta Inn in Trinidad, and traveled to the trail head. There they mounted up (Trinidad Bill's fancy buggy for the cameraman, thank you) and proceeded east along the canyon's edge. The video is a compilation of both days, and includes a visit to homesteader's ruins, Jack's Canyon, and then to the rim of Pinon Canyon with the Purgatory River below.

For reasons unknown to civilians, the Army keeps trying to expand their already mammoth Maneuver Site. US Congressmen, Colorado Representatives, and ranchers have come together to try to prevent this naked land grab, but the Army keeps coming back for more (despite promises in 1983, during the largest eminent domain land grab in US history, that they wouldn't).


Although unknown to many Colorado residents, this area is a treasure of wildlife, archeological sites (over 1,500 on the current site), Indian burial grounds and petroglyphs, and home to over 17,000 farmers, ranchers, business people and their families. Please visit here, and here for more information on how you can join in the effort to stop this unwarranted expansion. Also go to this site's index for Pinon Canyon.