The Tom Meixner trail would cross about 8 miles of hills and grassland along Arizona state Route 82 and tie into a larger trail network through an area that meant a lot to the University of Arizona hydrologist and professor.
“This would be perfect for Tom. It has great resources, it has water, and it connects the Cienega and the Sonoita watersheds,” said Shela McFarlin, a volunteer and former board member with the nonprofit Cienega Watershed Partnership. “His vision was to connect these watersheds and connect the people on the ground doing this work.”
Meixner was serving as chairman of the partnership and head of the U of A’s Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences Department when he was killed by a gunman at the department’s offices on campus on Oct. 5, 2022. A group of his friends and colleagues first floated the idea of building a trail in his honor a few months after his death.
The project is being developed by the Cienega Watershed Partnership, Friends of Sonoita Creek and the Mountain Empire Trail Association, a small Patagonia group founded in 2006 to turn an old railroad right-of-way into a path for hikers, bicyclists and horseback riders. The proposed Meixner trail is an extension of that so-called Train Track Trail, or TTT for short, which follows the route of the New Mexico and Arizona Railroad that ran between Benson and Nogales from 1882 until the tracks were pulled up in 1963.
Friends of Sonoita Creek president Bob Proctor lives in Patagonia and also serves on the boards of the Mountain Empire Trail Association and the Cienega Watershed Partnership, among other local groups. He said it is an honor for him and his fellow trail developers to be working on this tribute to Meixner. Read more here
