City officials who favor the trail system may soon get more clout to approve trails even without the Park Service's approval. Park Service officials say the laws and agreements governing the monument may not give the feds authority over thousands of acres of city-owned land in the monument. If the Park Service draws a formal conclusion that it lacks such authority, the city would be free to run that section of the monument as it wishes. Pueblo Indian leaders and environmentalists contend that horses and cycles on trails would desecrate a site sacred to them. When horses are on a regular route, they do their thing, and that's not really nice.
Bikes are the same thing.
They are not going to be regulated, because the Park Service doesn't have enough manpower to do that. Horseback-riding interests see this plan as a compromise, because it contains seven fewer trail miles than the Park Service's earlier draft plan contained. It's a lot of area out there. The Park Service officials who drew up the plan say that they will simply improve and add signs and rock cairns to existing jeep roads and cattle trails on the monument, rather than build new trails. By requiring trail users to get permits and by forcing them to stay on the trails, the agency says, it can avoid damage to Indian cultural sites.