Who owns the open arroyo at the dead end of Cadiz Street and Fiesta Drive? The City of El Paso doesn't. The 91 acres of desert known as the Wakeem/Teschner Nature Preserve at Resler Canyon belong to The Frontera Land Alliance, a nonprofit land trust. The canyon was its first land preservation project.
The canyon is still wild for three reasons. Neighbors on the Coronado side of the Westside organized more than two decades ago, one resident donated the money for the land trust to buy it, and volunteers still look after it. This fall the canyon has two public dates on its calendar. The second one honors the man who started the campaign.
A private preserve with public trails
Frontera owns the canyon outright and opens it for walking, meditation, wildlife observation and other low-impact uses. Dr. Richard Teschner asked that the land stay as it is, and Frontera says it has no plans to build visitor facilities or add trails. In practice there's no visitor center, and Frontera's preserve page lists no restrooms, drinking water or parking lot. Bring your own water and park with your neighbors in mind.
Frontera describes the trail as a 2-mile loop. Some sections may be closed or rerouted at times to protect sensitive habitat. The posted rules are short and firm:
- Dogs must be on a leash, and people and pets are asked to stay on maintained trails
- No bicycles and no vehicles of any kind, motorized or pedaled
- No camping, fires, hunting, dumping, plant collecting or feeding wildlife
How 140 houses became none
The canyon's open space was never guaranteed. Older Westside development mostly went up on the mesas, and long-time residents assumed the arroyos would stay natural. Rapid growth tested that assumption, and Resler Canyon was one of the first arroyos slated for building. Here's how Frontera tells the sequence:
- The proposal. The canyon's owner, Hunt Building Company, puts forward plans for about 195 single-family homes in the canyon, a number later revised to 140.
- Spring 2003. Charlie Wakeem, a native El Paso businessman and president of the Coronado Neighborhood Association, starts the campaign to keep the canyon open. Membership in the association grows from 25 to at least 250 by the end of 2004.
- January 2004. Dr. Richard V. Teschner, a UTEP linguistics professor who lives in the Coronado Townhomes just north of the canyon, quietly begins working to buy the arroyo.
- Spring 2005. Teschner brings his plan to Frontera's board. He goes on to donate $1.87 million so the land trust can buy the property directly. The City of El Paso sets aside $347,500 to repair drainage structures that feed the canyon.
- December 23, 2005. The sale closes, and Frontera becomes the owner of the 91 acres.
Frontera credits a year of negotiation among the developer, Teschner and his attorneys at ScottHulse, city staff and elected officials, the neighborhood association and its own board. Frontera also says the success at Resler led the City to start a public planning process for open space across El Paso.
Who keeps the trail walkable
Owning land as a nature preserve takes ongoing work. Frontera holds community cleanup days twice a year, in spring and fall, and replants areas damaged by erosion, illegal dumping and drainage repairs. Over the years, volunteers have installed wattles to help a large disturbed area regrow, built one-rock dams to slow erosion and keep the trails safe, removed invasive plants and hauled out hundreds of bags of trash.
The scale of that upkeep is modest. Frontera's 2025 annual report logged 100 volunteer hours and 40 miles walked or monitored at Resler Canyon that year, plus 2½ miles of trail the group works on and cares for often. A hundred hours is about two and a half 40-hour work weeks for one person, spread across 91 acres for a full year.
The payoff shows up in the wildlife. Frontera's species list for the canyon includes Gambel's quail, greater roadrunners, great horned owls, cactus wrens, curve-billed thrashers, mule deer, coyotes and Texas horned lizards. Plants include ocotillo, soaptree yucca, desert willow and creosote bush.
Two dates on the canyon's calendar
Saturday, November 28: an evening bird walk
The El Paso/Trans-Pecos Audubon is holding informal birding walks through the rest of 2026. The next one at Resler is Saturday, November 28, from 4 to 6 p.m. Audubon representative Scott Cutler leads it, and you don't need to register or have birding experience. Meet at Cadiz Street and Fiesta Drive. Wear good walking or tennis shoes, since Frontera's events calendar describes the route as easy to moderate. Bring water, snacks, sun protection and layers. A few loaner binoculars are available first come, first served.
November 28 is also the last day to register for the race eight days later.
Sunday, December 6: the second Resler Trail Race and Family Walk
The race started last year as part of the preserve's 20th anniversary. The first one ran December 7, 2025, and El Paso Matters listed it among that weekend's events. Frontera's 2025 annual report counted more than 150 sign-ups for that first race and family walk.
This year's race remembers Charlie Wakeem, who died in May. Frontera's race registration page describes him this way:
"Charlie was a key founder of Frontera, and his hard work was instrumental in protecting the Wakeem-Teschner Nature Preserve at Resler Canyon. Charlie spent his time after retirement advocating open spaces in El Paso as he loved its natural beauty; especially its sunsets."
The El Paso Times obituary has more about his life.
The 5K runs the trail loop twice over hills, rocks and sand. One logistics note: Frontera's own event page still lists a 7 a.m. start. The registration page shows 7:30 a.m. for the 5K, and those are the times below.
Following the water downhill
The canyon's job doesn't end at the preserve boundary. Frontera explains that water running off the Franklin Mountains flows through Resler Canyon and straight into the Keystone Wetland, a city-owned, privately managed natural area. The wetland is also the site of a 4,000-year-old Native American village. Frontera says the canyon's mile of soil and plants filters that water and improves its quality before it reaches one of the desert's rare wetlands.
In other words, the 2005 purchase protected more than a trail. It protected the source of a wetland a short drive away on Doniphan Drive, at Keystone Heritage Park. This year the two places share a weekend. Keystone's Luminarias at Keystone 2026 runs the two evenings before the race, with music and holiday refreshments.
| Date | What | Where | Time | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fri., Dec. 4 | Luminarias at Keystone | Keystone Heritage Park, Doniphan Dr. | 6–9 p.m. | $5 adults, $2 ages 12 and under |
| Sat., Dec. 5 | Luminarias at Keystone | Keystone Heritage Park, Doniphan Dr. | 6–9 p.m. | $5 adults, $2 ages 12 and under |
| Sat., Dec. 5 | Race packet pickup | Frontera office, 1201 N. Mesa St. | 11 a.m.–1 p.m. | No price listed |
| Sun., Dec. 6 | Resler 5K Trail Race | Dead end of Cadiz St. & Fiesta Dr. | 7:30 a.m. | $30 |
| Sun., Dec. 6 | 1 Mile Trail Walk | Dead end of Cadiz St. & Fiesta Dr. | 8:00 a.m. | $25 |
Race details from the registration page:
- Register by November 15 if you want a race shirt. Registration closes November 28 at 11:59 p.m.
- If you can't make Saturday pickup, packets are available on race morning from 7:00 to 7:30 a.m.
- Dogs aren't allowed in the preserve during the race, so a usual leashed dog walk that morning needs a different route.
If you'd rather walk than run, our earlier post on the Thunderbird rock formation behind Coronado Country Club covers another short, free walk on this side of the mountain.
Open land like Resler Canyon shapes what a Westside address is worth, and it's part of what we weigh when we value homes in Coronado Country Club and the streets around it. If you'd like to know how your home's setting factors into its price, Adel Reyes and our team are glad to talk it through. Request Your Free Home Valuation.
