Community Ambassador Spotlight: Simon Sotelo III

It all began because he needed a new backpack. Simon Sotelo III became a CDT Gateway Community Ambassador in Silver City, New Mexico nearly ten years ago. Silver City had recently been designated as the first CDT Gateway Community, making Simon one of the earliest Community Ambassadors. At the time, Community Ambassadors received a backpack, and Simon figured, “It’s a free backpack, and I need a free backpack.”

Simon has lived in Silver City for 24 years, but his history with the town stretches much longer. He explained that his family has been in the area since before New Mexico was a state. He has always had a strong connection to the area. As he describes it, “I can stand in a place and know that this is where my people are from, where I’m from.”

Creating Space on the Trail

Simon knows that most narratives of the outdoors and of trails do not represent him or his fellow Silver City community members. As an Ambassador, Simon wants to change this narrative in Silver City. “In a lot of ways, there is an idea of trails being something for ‘the other,’ We see all of these images of people who hike and we see people who don’t look anything like us. Since I’ve been involved with conservation and the CDT, I’ve noticed that those people that we see in the photos, those people aren’t from the communities that these trails go through,” he explained. “This leads to a loss of ownership and empowerment among community members to this asset that is a part of their community.”

Simon still remembers an article that he read in an outdoor magazine many years ago. The article described “the unlikely hiker.” Simon described the article, “It was about BIOP people and queer folks and overweight people and they were calling them the ‘unlikely hiker.’ I check a lot of those boxes. I am a Hispanic, Latino, gay, overweight male who lives in an at or below-poverty-level community, and [hiking] is something that I do on a regular basis.” Simply by being himself on the trail, Simon is changing this narrative and creating space for others in his community to do the same.

He described the pride he felt when his niece recently hiked the main stem of the Gila, a common CDT alternate.

“She’s seventeen years old and she and her friends hiked it in seven days… They’re a bunch of brown girls who woke up every morning and had a good time. She’s doing what she does and she’s enjoying her life and she’s not the person that all of this [outdoor recreation narratives] is aimed at. It makes me proud to know that her and her friends were like ‘Oh if Uncle Simon can do, I can do it.”

Throughout his tenure as a Community Ambassador, Simon has hosted dozens of community events, including an ongoing series of hikes throughout 2024 in commemoration of the centennial anniversary of the designation of the Gila Wilderness. He makes sure that these monthly hikes are accessible to all members of the Silver City community, offering gas vouchers and backpacks to remove further barriers.

“People in my community can say ‘Oh yeah Simon’s from here and he’s going to take us on a hike in the Gila Wilderness’ because I’m more relatable because I’m from that community and they’re seeing me doing it,” said Simon. This work has been integral in building Silver City’s relationship with the CDT.

Describing the impact of these hikes, CDTC Executive Director Teresa Martinez said, “Simon has shared his love of his home while also sharing why protecting the Gila Wilderness, the Gila River, and the CDT are critical – and why every voice matters, especially when the voices come from the lands and places they are protecting. Simon is a rare combination of passion, knowledge and someone who leads from his heart and invites all of us to join him, while also sharing meaningful experiences in nature together.”

The Impact of the CDT in Silver City

“I think that the number one challenge we face is that we are a rural community directly adjacent to public lands, said Simon. Mining has been a major economic driver in the Silver City community for over 200 years, and an inherent tension still exists. He is passionate about finding a way for the two to coexist, saying that, “The mines will always exist. We need to find a way to coexist, Protecting our way of life and finding ways to protect the places we love.”

Simon believes that the CDT Gateway Community program has played a role in the cultural and economic shift of many trail communities in their transition from a natural resource-based economy to focusing more on tourism. Many Silver City businesses and community organizations have begun to take pride in their Gateway Community status to attract people to Silver City. Even the local clay festival mentions that they are a Gateway Community in some of their advertising. “They’re able to add that in and utilize it to pique peoples’ interest in coming,” Simon explains. “You throw that in and people will say ‘this is a really interesting place.”

The Gateway Community designation can help forge a relationship between the community and the CDT. “When you feel like you have ownership or equity in something, you tend to be more passionate about it,” Simon explained. It creates a feeling that “this is ours and we should maintain it– not only because it contributes to our economy, but because it’s ours.” Looking back, Simon says, “I don’t think a lot of people thought that it (Gateway Community designation) was going to have that much of an impact in our community.”

Likewise, Simon did not anticipate the impact the Ambassador program would have on his life, saying that “it started out as 15 hours and a free backpack and now I have one of the best friends in my life; I have pancake batter being delivered to my house for Trail Days; I have all of this knowledge about congressional designation.”

“When I signed up I did not know that it would bring me to this point.” About the program as a whole, said Simon, and added that , “A lot of times, a program like the Ambassador Program creates space not just for the people that are a part of it, but it creates spaces for others.”

Years and dozens of community events later, Simon doesn’t have that original backpack anymore. He recently gave it to a young person in his community who needed a pack and whose family couldn’t afford one. Reflecting on this, Simon said, “Now, I’m in a position where I can give a free backpack to someone who needs it. The CDT helped make that happen.” The story epitomizes Simon’s motivations for his continued work as a Community Ambassador: his deep love of community and the desire to make space on trails for all.