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PAGE 1 OF THE JUNE 1996 ISSUE OF PASS PATROL CAMPFIRE TALES
The issue included here has the stories and not the advertisements.  Keep in mind, these stories were written in 1996.  A lot has changed since that time.

This issue includes

Forest Road 150

Alma, New Mexico!

Dry Canyon

FOREST ROAD 150 - Another of the many adventures of PASS PATROL

What if you threw a party and nobody came.  That’s the way the Gila National Forest looked.  Beautifully constructed campgrounds along Forest Road 150.  Not a single camper was using them.  It is a good example of what happens when areas are turned into Wilderness where no forms of motorized recreation are legal.  Since there is nothing to do, no one goes there.

I arrived in San Lorenzo, New Mexico on Friday night and camped at the entrance of the Gila National Forest on Forest Road 150.  I had been attracted by the existence of a dirt road 45 miles long squeezed in on both sides by areas designated as primitive.

It was a beautiful drive, not 4wheeling by anyone’s standards, but restricted by the Forest Service to 4-wheel drive and high clearance vehicles.  Perhaps if it were wet or had snow on it, the surface would become slippery but there was no chance I would be testing that theory.  New Mexico is having a drought this year and has a statewide ban on open fires and charcoal fires.  In fact, the Forest Service has begun barricading access roads into national forests and one official told us all forest lands in the state will be closed within a few weeks.

Forest Road 150 was a beautiful drive.  The campgrounds are clean and well designed.  Primitive camping areas are plentiful although most of them are very close to the dusty access road.