On friday March 25th, our family had met at the Wilbanks"High Country" Mayhill RV Park to camp out, cook and ride UTV's all weekend for what could almost be called a Family Reunion. It was a very pleasurable and accomodating experience. Our mom, 91 years young, me, a retired NM educator, my sister, a retired farmer and mom, my brother, a CEO of an Alb Credit Union and my brother, a Welder for a wealthy Texas oil company. Also on the saturday ride was other family and friends, 15 riders on 5 UTV's most are over the age of 55. We had planned to ride out of camp on a designated forest trail which none of us were familiar with. After about 2 hours, we realized that the trail could have been classified "Experts or Experienced Riders only". We had 4 people qualified as Onyx map readers and decided the EASIEST way out was down another Forest trail which ended at a locked gate on the West side of the Gillespie's property. Nearly all of us knew the Gillespies having stayed at their RV Park and on a couple of occasions even rented a cabin from them. We had hauled horses up there and ridden out of the park also on occasion. Mr. Gillespie actually drove up from the private side of the locked gate while the "Geriatric" novice trail riders were all on the Forest side trying to decide on an alternate route to get out of our situation. My nephew and I approached Mr. Gillespie's gate to seek permission to cross his private property, less than a mile thereby getting us on a well maintained Forest Road, Carr Gap, to be specific. He was packing a shoulder harnessed Glock handgun and seemed to be very upset with the 26th day of March 😏😳. I introduced my self, Larry Lunsford and ask him "if he would consider allowing us to cross his private property to get our UTV's back to the Carr Gap Road" ? HIS RESPONSE WAS "NOPE" !!!!
I need to insert at this point that the entire group of riders have total respect for the land owners and ranchers. So, we all turned our Buggys around and headed back up the forest road we had just traversed. We finally got back to Carr Gap Road 2.5 hours later. Traveling by the Gillespie Carr Gap Gate, I stopped and pointed to all the riders , "this is where we COULD HAVE COME OUT 3 HOURS AGO". I SINCERELY HOPE that thousands of campers read this review before they rent an RV space or cabin from a "man" with an attitude like we witnessed at the Gillespie locked gate.
Larry Lunsford