Written by Rebekah Sutherland, Wild Stew Field Crew Member.
The Wild Stew Field Crew ventured out again to New Mexico this past week, this time for our first hitch in the Trout Fire burn scar in the Gila National Forest. The Trout Fire burned nearly 50,000 acres north of Silver City in June of 2025, and impacted many trails in the area, including a section of the Continental Divide Trail. Wild Arizona set out this hitch to bring new life to this section of one of our National Scenic Trails.
The four main objectives ahead of us were as follows: clear the corridor by cutting out fallen trees and brushing, remove standing dead hazard trees that will fall across the trail, stabilize eroding sections of trail and improve drainage, and reestablish tread where it had begun to disappear. Springtime winds howled across the landscape, but by adjusting work locations with weather shifts, the crew was able to keep working and accomplished quite a lot. In total, we brushed and maintained 8.5 miles of the CDT (quite the undertaking for an 8 day hitch), felling 366 hazard trees, cutting 12 logs down on the trail and building 21 retaining structures and 5 drains.
This hitch taught the crew many things. Sawyers learned about cutting various types of burned trees. Crew members learned to listen and adapt to weather in a burn scar. Some used new techniques and materials to build retention structures. And, importantly, some of us learned that putting ice cream on a hot dog is actually pretty tasty.
