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Published: June 24th 2017
Geo: 36.0222, -106.958
Have you ever been to the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico? One of our first trips out west camping back in the day took us to Fenton Lake and on NM 126 to Cuba on our way to Colorado.
Its a beautiful area, and this time we camped the two nights around a volunteer project with WildEarth Guardians.
We got permission to camp the night before we did the tree planting. We have gotten a new tent to take to Africa and wanted to test it out and see what putting it up consisted of. We were pleasantly surprised to be able to put it up without any trouble.
We fixed a soup for dinner and just as we were sitting down to eat a herd of elk came down the mountain side and were having their dinner in our view. What a treat! The work crew was being treated to dinner in town so we just met them briefly before they went into town and were asleep by the time they returned. They built a fire when they returned and it looked like it was right beside us but was just an illusion.
One thing we can say...............it got very
WildEarth Guardians Wildlife / River Restoration
salute to the warming sun.............was below freezing when we got up!cold that night. Robert's water bottle froze inside the tent! Fortunately as the sun came up it was pouring into our tent. We raised the rain fly to take advantage of the warmth.
The rest of the work crew arrived and we went down to plant the trees. The leader of the tree planters, Doug, gave us our instructions on how to properly plant the willows we were putting in. This much I can tell you..........it involves a lot of tamping down of the dirt you are putting back in the ground. Fortunately for us the holes were already dug and we were just filling them back up. This was true except for the planting of the aspen. You were instructed to dig until you hit water and unfortunately Robert had to dig down almost 4 feet!
We broke for lunch provided by WildEarth Guardians and then worked for about another hour before calling it a day. We went back to the tent and rested and then got up and enjoyed the evening with the wrok crew. They were quite energetic considering all the work they had done before we got there. They have to build an enclosure for the
newly planted trees to keep the elk from munching down on those newly planted willows! The beaver can still get through the enclosure however.
We brought a cheese with raspberry/chipotle sauce over for a pre dinner treat and watched a lively game of horseshoes. After the sun had gone down, they fixed spaghetti for dinner. Even though we had eaten dinner, we tried some just because we could!
They fixed a great fire and we had a wonderful fire and had some great conversations on all manner of things. We did not solve the world problems, however. One of the amazing things was one of the workers had been to San Gerardo de Rivas, Costa Rica where we have been twice. This is a remote town that lies at the base of Mount Chirripo, the tallest mountain in Central America. Bid all a goodnight and off to bed. It was not as cold as the night before.
Packed up and took the more scenic route from 126 past Fenton Lake and down past Bandelier and home.
Want to learn more, contribute or get involved with this work ? Info from WildEarth Guardians website quoted below......
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http://www.wildearthguardians.org/site/PageServer?pagename=programs_wild_rivers#.UZKOa1ebUlQ
"WildEarth Guardians works to protect and restore wildlife, wild
places and wild rivers in the American West. "
"The first and mostvital step in our river restoration work begins by permanently removing
livestock from the stream. We then remove non-native invasive trees from the
area by hand. After the area is cleared of non-native trees, community
volunteers participate in our restoration events, planting native cottonwood
and willows as well as other trees and shrubs.
These events are energized byour Stream Team, which plants trees
and raises money to support our efforts.
The native vegetation we plant jump-startsthe restoration process, restoring healthy streambanks, purifying and coolingwaters and providing important habitat for fish and wildlife. You'll be
astonished by the recovery that we've started.
Watch a video showing before andafter photos of some of our river restoration projects. Learn more
about our annual community tree planting events that restore streamside forests
across New Mexico and Arizona."
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