Trout Unlimited New Mexico is looking for volunteers to spend September 19 and 20 in the north Jemez, repairing two exclosures on Chihuahueños Creek.
An exclosure is fencing that keeps livestock off the streambanks so willows, grass and the creek itself can recover. TU has been restoring this drainage and its population of native Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout for years, and fencing only does its job for as long as somebody keeps it standing. That is the work.
Saturday, volunteers meet on the north side of the Jemez, caravan to the site, hike about two miles round trip to the exclosures, make the repairs, and camp. Sunday, a shuttle runs to the top of the restoration work and the group hikes four miles back down through the full length of the project. That second day is the unusual part. Plenty of us read about watershed restoration. Very few get to walk one end to end with the people who built it.
Go in clear-eyed. TU puts the site at roughly a three-hour drive from Taos or Albuquerque, it is six miles of hiking across the two days, and you sleep in your own tent. All meals are provided by TU. Camping gear is yours to bring.
Register first
Space is limited, and TU requires volunteers to pre-register. This is not a show-up-and-help trip. Registration and the full itinerary are on TU New Mexico’s event page.
The trip is also on our own events calendar. Board member Patrick Iverson will be out there for both days.
Questions go to Juliet Smith, TU’s Northern New Mexico project manager, at [email protected].
What the work actually looks like
Daniel Gibson went out with the April crew and wrote it up for us: Hard Work Paying Off on the Rito Chihuahueños. Log structures trapping sediment, willow poles going into cow-stomped banks, and dozens of small cutthroat holding behind work that earlier crews put in.
