The Red River crashes into the Rio Grande deep into a gorge hundreds of feet below the canyon rim, the merging of two great western rivers hidden from sight.  

Eight hundred feet above, piñon and juniper scatter across a flat sagebrush mesa that looks more ocean than land. To the east, the Sangre De Cristo Mountains loom.  

But walk on. The gorge stretches out before you, a long rent in the earth with walls hundreds of feet high and appearing impossible to scale even for those with climbing shoes and ropes. Far below, the Rio Grande appears to be a languid ribbon of off-color water draining slowly south. Up close, the river is not lazy at all, but a rushing torrent. What appear to be pebbles from up top are in fact boulders, some as big as cars or small houses.

The Pueblo people of northern New Mexico called the river “P’Osoge” (Big River). Later, Spanish conquistadors would call it El Río Grande del Norte. In this section of the river west of Taos, the Rio Grande is often just called “the Gorge.”

From the Wild River’s Recreation Area on the La Junta trail, it’s a mile to the bottom. A damn steep mile that will punish your knees on the way down and everything else on the way back up. 

The Gorge is the kind of wild place that was spared from roads and development by geologic luck-of-the draw. Some 30 million years ago, the earth’s tectonic plates started drifting, stretching apart an area of land from Colorado to Texas and south into Mexico. The shift opened a line from Leadville, Colo., to Chihuahua, Mexico into a rift valley. That rift valley captured streams and rivers, rerouting them and gathering them up into the 1,800 mile-long Rio Grande. In other words, the river did not create the gorge; the gorge created the river.

In 2009, U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman introduced legislation to protect the gorge as a National Conservation Area with companion legislation in the house by U.S. Reps. Ben Ray Lujan and Martin Heinrich. The bill was introduced in both houses again in 2011 and 2013. Unfortunately, Congress was unable or unwilling to act even though the bill had broad support from locals, hunter and anglers, the New Mexico congressional delegation, the county, and the governor.

Ultimately, Congress never could get its act together to vote on Rio Grande del Norte legislation. So, Trout Unlimited and many others had a plan B: Ask the President of the United States to designate the landscape a national monument where our hunting and fishing heritage would be forever protected. Monument designation would ensure that hunting and fishing—along with tourism like hiking and backpacking—would be the primary, sustainable and lasting uses, not one-time, often-damaging extraction of oil and gas.

Fortunately, President Obama declared Rio Grande del Norte a National Monument in 2013, using his authority under the Antiquities Act to protect the Rio Grande Gorge for future anglers. In 2017, Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-NM and Sen. Tom Udall, D-NM, successfully passed the Cerro del Yuta and Rio San Antonio Wilderness Act, and designated the Cerro del Yuta Wilderness and Rio San Antonio Wilderness within the Río Grande del Norte National Monument.

A similar story can be told for Browns Canyon National Monument in Colorado, Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in California and Organ Mountains – Desert Peaks in New Mexico.

All of these public lands that are now protected as national monuments were first legislative proposals – legislation that Congress failed to pass.

It is the pattern that goes as far back as 1911 and the designation of 13,884 acres of public land as the Colorado National Monument. With legislation languishing in Congress, U.S. Rep. Edward T. Taylor wrote President Taft urging him to create a national monument, explaining that, “The people have been trying to have it set aside as a national park and Sen. Guggenheim and I have had bills in Congress for that purpose. But Congress does not seem to be disposed to create national parks…”

From some of America’s first national monuments, to some of our most recent, these designations have occurred in response to Congress failing to act on legislation despite overwhelming local support. When Congress is unable to take action on conservation initiatives, the Antiquities Act provides a vehicle to see these proposals through to fruition.

Even though I no longer live in New Mexico, the Rio Grande Gorge is part of my story. It is a place that formed me not only as a fly angler, but as a conservationist and as a man, a husband and a father. It is a place that deserves to remain. A place where future generations can visit to catch fish and get skunked. A place to explore and hike and sweat and learn how to hang a pack out of reach of bears and wade the cold, swift water of an iconic river.

Because of the Antiquities Act, the Rio Grande does – and will – remain.

—Greg McReynolds, Pocatello, Idaho, formerly of Albuquerque, New Mexico.