# New Barbed Wire on Rio Chama



## prgsmall (Aug 27, 2009)

For all you New Mexican boaters out there who will be running the Rio Chama monastery stretch:

There is now barbed wire fence on both sides of the river, directly under Skull Bridge. Running directly down the center if the river will get you through just fine...

Pedro


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## lmyers (Jun 10, 2008)

Are the rangers aware of this? The Chama is a heavily enough used river that I would think they would want to remove a hazard of this nature...


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## ZGjethro (Apr 10, 2008)

lmyers said:


> Are the rangers aware of this? The Chama is a heavily enough used river that I would think they would want to remove a hazard of this nature...


I have only run the upper Chama, and do not know this section. Is it in Forest service or Park service lands so that rangers have any say? If a property owner fenced his land parallel to the river, I doubt a ranger would have any say in the matter. Did they fence a public bridge and the access that goes along with that?


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## southbound (May 20, 2008)

*Now I'm Curious*

Haven't been there in a couple of months. Last year sometime they repaired a short shoreline parallel section of barbwire fence just under and a bit upstream of the bridge but it was way out of the way. You could still eddy out river left right below the bridge. 

Pedro, how wide is the 'center line' now, still pretty wide?


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## lmyers (Jun 10, 2008)

ZGjethro said:


> I have only run the upper Chama, and do not know this section. Is it in Forest service or Park service lands so that rangers have any say? If a property owner fenced his land parallel to the river, I doubt a ranger would have any say in the matter. Did they fence a public bridge and the access that goes along with that?


The "Monastery" stretch is the "daily" section at the end of the wilderness/permitted run. It is patrolled by the BLM Taos field office and Del Dubois is the head river ranger. If it is a hazard and he has not yet been contacted, someone should.


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## prgsmall (Aug 27, 2009)

The middle section is still plenty wide to paddle through. Eddying out left under the bridge is a little tricky, but looked doable. I don't remember any barbed wire there over the summer... It may have been removed for rafting season and then reinstalled this fall. The wire there now is bright and shiny.


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