Written by Max Skolnick-Schur, Wild Stew Field Crew Leader.

This hitch, we returned to the Allie Canyon Trail #100 in the Gila National Forest to continue post-fire Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) work following the 2025 Trout Fire. This was an abbreviated partial hitch, totaling just three workdays in Allie Canyon.

Earlier this year, a Forest Service falling crew removed hazardous fire-damaged trees throughout the canyon, leaving numerous tall stumps along and near the trail corridor. Continuing from where we stopped during our previous hitch in late May and early June, we worked farther down the canyon cutting these stumps closer to ground level and cleaning up the trail to improve safety and aesthetics.

Reaching the worksite required a 5.5-mile hike while carrying chainsaws and other trail tools. We hiked the full distance in and out on the first day, but Forest Service staff were able to provide UTV transportation over the steepest initial three miles after that, giving us more productive time at the worksite.

During our time on the main project, the crew cut 190 high stumps closer to ground level, lowered 33 cut logs as part of erosion mitigation work, and cleared seven trees from the trail. We also improved drainage, tread, brushing, and trail marking, including building eight cairns and three drains and completing approximately half a mile of tread and brushing work.

Because the Trout Fire removed vegetation and changed how water moves through the watershed, flash-flood risk in Allie Canyon is significantly elevated during the summer monsoon. Forest Service staff asked us to be especially cautious when storms were building. When conditions became unfavorable, we left the canyon bottom and shifted to a safer fallback project near the Wilderness Ranger District office. This reduced our time on the main project but still allowed us to make good use of the workday.

For the fallback project, we constructed an approximately 500-foot connector between the ranger district office parking area and the beginning of the Allie Canyon Trail. Previously, visitors had to park on the opposite side of NM Highway 35 and cross the highway to reach the trailhead. The new connector will allow hikers to park at the ranger district office and access the trail more safely without needing to relocate their vehicle. Several crew members also scouted and assessed the two legs of a possible Allie Canyon loop from the trailhead for potential future improvements.

For the second half of the hitch, the crew transitioned to City of Tucson Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) work at Sunland Vista Park. A recent large rain event had eroded sections of the pathway and damaged portions of the stormwater basins.

The crew repaired eroded areas and drainage features, cleaned up storm damage, removed trash, cut and moved fallen branches, and improved the pathway corridor. This work helped restore the site and improve how water moves through the basins and surrounding landscape.

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Written by Rebekah Sutherland, Assistant Crew Lead.

The Wild Stew Field Crew returned, once again, to our beloved Gila National Forest this past week. If you pass the tiny town of Mogollon, NM, weaving through windy mountain roads, you reach an area of the National Forest that provides access via several trails to remote canyons and ridges within the Gila Wilderness. This hitch, we set out to begin constructing a reroute on one of these trails, the Redstone Trail, a trail we worked on and used for access into Whitewater Canyon multiple times in the past year. The first mile of the original Redstone trail alignment ascends steeply up to the Wilderness boundary, and because of this extreme grade, is not very enjoyable or sustainable. In an attempt to make the start of this trail more user friendly, easier for pack animals to use, and with better trailhead parking, the Gila National Forest asked Wild Arizona to construct a new path along a more sustainable alignment to become the new start of the trail. With this mission in mind, we set off from our camp at Silver Creek Divide to see what work lay ahead.

Our first scout of the new alignment gave us a taste of what was ahead. We scrambled up and over huge log jams, crawled under large suspended trees, weaved through thousands of small aspens, and traversed a loose, gravelly hillside that slid out from under our feet as we walked. Despite the difficulty of travel, the views from the trail were awe-inspiring. With chainsaws (for the non-Wilderness portion) and crosscut saws (for when we crossed into Wilderness) in hand, the crew began clearing a corridor for this new trail. In total, we cut approximately 325 downed logs from across the new trail over nearly 3/4 mile, and removed brush and small aspen to open up a corridor. We also began the process of removing roots and stumps and digging new tread. The contrast of before and after was quite fun to see, and in the end, our travel time through the area took only a fraction of the time it took to do our first scouting trip.

As we worked on our reroute, we could see the smoke from the nearby Sacaton Fire, a fire that was started by a lightning strike in steep terrain a few drainages from us in the Wilderness. Fire activity was mild during the first part of our hitch, but we monitored closely and received frequent updates from our partners at the Gila National Forest. When winds picked up drastically towards the end of the week, our project partners made the call to move us from the Redstone trail out of an abundance of caution. We were very grateful for their attentiveness to our safety, and we got to finish out our time in the area scouting the nearby Whitetail Canyon Trail. We spent our last day descending this spectacular canyon, documenting needed work along a trail that sent us on a real adventure. Once again we found ourselves climbing over and under trees, traversing fire impacted hillsides, and pushing our way through patches of thorny plants. But in return we got to meander through flowing creek corridors, look up at stunning cliff faces, and eat as many raspberries as our fingers could pick. We returned to camp feeling very tired, and also very lucky to get to do what we do.

The more time we spend in the Gila National Forest, the more it starts to feel like home (a summer home, if you will). Whether it’s looking out across the landscape and seeing distant peaks and ranges we’ve worked on previous hitches earlier this year, or talking with our helpful and kind project partners, or even going to the same small town gas stations to grab ice cream on our way back to Tucson, the familiarity of being out here feels special. I can’t wait to keep seeing new beautiful corners of this amazing part of the world, and continuing to feel connected to it through the work that we get to do.

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Written by Kile Stumbo, Field Crew Leader.

Last week our field crew drove to a remote part of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest to work on McBride Mesa Trail #25, part of the larger Eagle National Recreation Trail. This trail and many others in the area have large segments that are highly eroded or almost untraceable due to effects from the large Bear Wallow Fire fifteen years ago.

After meeting up with Alex from the Forest Service, we set up camp near the trailhead and scouted the first mile of the trail. Over the next two days, we worked in two groups: one group brushing and treaded the upper section of McBride, while the others worked as a chainsaw team cutting logs out of the trail corridor, before transitioning to rockwork: building 3 rock retaining walls to help protect freshly re-treaded trail from eroding and guide hikers across rough, rocky portions of the slope.

While work continued on McBride Mesa trail, Sam Baggenstos, our Conservation & Wilderness Associate, took a couple days to scout the very faint and sometimes non-existent Bear Spring Trail, designing two reroute proposals to potentially move the trail up out of the flood zone in the future. Much of the original Bear Spring route sustained large amounts of erosion after the Bear Wallow Fire, which led to many sections getting fully washed out during seasonal flooding. The reroutes would help to increase the longevity of the trail by climbing up out of the flood zone, minimizing seasonal erosion. 

After a long day of scouting, treading, and brushing, the crew once again celebrated Bean Friday with Jonathan’s time-honored crunch wrap dinner, a welcome delicious meal after a hard day’s work.

By the end of our hitch, our crew re-treaded and brushed 1.51 miles of trail, built 3 retaining walls, 2 cairns, and cut/moved 81 logs out of the trail corridor from the top down to the junction with the Highline Trail #47.

We were glad to have Sam back with us after a few months leave where he was living and working in Georgia. At the same time, we were also heartbroken to lose three of our crew, Eric, Foster, and Sage, due to budget constraints brought on by the increasingly challenging funding climate facing conservation nonprofits. 

The important work Wild Arizona and the U.S. Forest Service accomplish together only happens due to the skilled people that make it happen. These people deserve to be paid for their hard work. When funding and staff are cut, the state of our public lands is put in jeopardy. So please donate if you can to help support the conservation of public lands, and contact your political representatives to tell them why public lands are important to you, and why we need to fund the agencies that manage and protect them.

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Written by Sage Bradford, Wild Stew Field Crew Member.

This week, our crew is back in Gila National Forest. This marked our 3rd hitch of the spring doing emergency response work to the Trout Fire, a wildfire that broke out in June of 2025 due to lightning and which burned 47,294 acres just north of Silver City, New Mexico. While our previous Trout Fire hitches prioritized restoring the popular Continental Divide Trail post-fire, this week we worked on the connecting access trail to the CDT, Allie Canyon Trail #100.

Allie Canyon is a lovely 9 mile trail descending 2,000 feet from the Continental Divide Trail down to NM Highway 35. The crew spent 8 days working hard to improve the trail. One of the main work priorities was low-stumping previously felled standing dead trees. By the end of the week, the crew had low-stumped 786 trees. This made the trail safer and more aesthetically pleasing. Additionally, 29 trees were cleared off the trail. Moreover, 177 suspended logs along the trail corridor were bucked and lowered to help provide access to stumps or improve erosion control on burned slopes.

The crew also built 84 cairns to help the trail be more easily navigable. Cairns proved especially helpful at the numerous water crossings. Additionally, the crew built/maintained 50 drains and 1 check step to assist water in getting off the tread and slowing erosion. By the end of the week, the crew had traveled 3.2 miles down the trail doing spot treading and cairn building. We pushed even farther, a total of 3.85 miles, doing low stumping and logouts.

On Friday, the crew celebrated a traditional Bean Friday, feasting on a group dinner of crunch wraps (ingredients supplied courtesy of Jonathan). The weather was pleasant for the entirety of hitch. Spring is in full bloom in the Gila. Between swings of the pick, filling the chainsaw with more gas, and sips of water, I marveled at all the natural wonders the Gila had to offer. I was surprised and excited to see a small bit of water flowing in Allie Canyon. Each night, I witnessed a gorgeous sunset over the distant mountains. My favorite flora and fauna sightings from the week include Fendler’s Globemallow, Pinyon Evening Primrose, Putnam’s Cicadas, and Mountain Bee Assassins.

As always, it’s a delight to work in such a beautiful “office” and do such rewarding work.

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Written by Rebekah Sutherland, Assistant Crew Lead.

This past hitch, the Wild Stew Field Crew packed up their bags, and headed into the beautiful backcountry of the Aldo Leopold Wilderness. At the direction of our partners at the Gila National Forest and the Continental Divide Trail Coalition, the crew set out with a goal to improve tread and remove large deadfall from across the Black Canyon Trail, a section of trail that doubles as a portion of the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail. Weighed down by 3 crosscut saws, axes, loppers, tread tools, 8 days of food, and more, crew members hiked in on the steep and exposed Rattlesnake Trail, stopping to cut high logs along the way with the hope of making this access trail passable to stock animals. This will give the forest and its partners the option to use pack strings to support work on multiple higher elevation trails in the future. After a hot day of hiking up hill, our campsite at Reeds Meadow was a sight for sore eyes. Beautiful green grass, tall (living) pine trees, and tasty spring water made this spot the perfect home for the week.

Along the Rattlesnake Trail, the crew cut 18 logs, but that was just the start of our crosscutting this hitch. For much of the rest of our hitch, sawdust flew and 95 logs were cut out of the priority section of the Black Canyon Trail, opening up 2.5 miles of trail for easier travel. At the bottom of that 2.5 mile section sat the Black Canyon Box, a section of high cliff walls and narrow canyon where the trail is forced out of the canyon bottom to traverse the steep hillside above. In this section, the trail was greatly narrowed by erosion, and needed some extra attention, so crew members retreaded that portion of trail, totaling 0.39 miles. With these two work priorities done (logouts and retread), the crew was also able to tackle 1.12 miles of brushing, 0.74 miles of spot treading, 6 drain constructions, and 8 cairn builds along the Black Canyon Trail. 

Overall, this hitch felt like a dream at times. Waking up in a lush meadow each morning, working along a canyon creek with dramatic rock formations above us, and falling into the rhythm of the crosscut, we didn’t know work could feel so peaceful. That is, until we were awoken from our dreams (literally) by howling winds. The last couple days of sustained 35+ mph wind kept us on high alert during the day, and awake at night, as our tents tried their best (and often failed) to stay up. We powered on, and made it through with the help of cookies brought by our Field Operations Director, Jonathan, and by entertaining ourselves by talking through the plot points of all the Fast and Furious movies. The human memory can recall amazing things when deprived of connection to the outside world for days at a time.

On our last day waking up in Reeds Meadow, we had a few hours to do a bit of work on a section of the trail near camp, a small connector that had begun to disappear. We logged out 7 trees, brushed the length of it, built a couple cairns, and treaded the first 210 feet, with the hopes of setting up a future crew for success to finish the work. As we hiked back out the way we came on the Rattlesnake Trail, we noticed several new trees down across the trail, a result of the high winds the area was experiencing. This felt like a good reminder that the work we do is needed and important, and that consistency and teamwork amongst crews and organizations is what will keep these incredible areas accessible for years to come. We look forward to coming back to the Black Canyon Trail someday and seeing how our work and the work of crews to come will help bring new people to this beautiful place.

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Written by Max Skolnick-Schur, Wild Stew Field Crew Leader.

The crew headed up the Circle Seven Trail again in the east side of the Aldo Leopold Wilderness to continue pushing the trail closer to the junction with the Continental Divide Trail/Black Range Crest Trail. While most of the crew start work, we also found and flagged the trail ahead all the way to the top. Most of our work involved cutting open the post-fire vegetation overgrowth, as well as redefining creek crossings, and improving tread in places as needed.

Through the many patches of oak, locust and mountain mahogany, we cut open more of the trail that had been lost to time. This trail is important as it provides an additional eastern access route on the CDT for people to get on and off the trail as well as make it easier for crews and pack stock to get in further to continue maintenance work on the CDT and other adjacent trails.

Besides a little rain and hail, nothing was slowing us down and we made good progress on the trail, ultimately retreading and brushing 1.2 miles of trail, as well as building cairns at all creek crossings and other poorly defined areas, and we cut 9 logs off the trail.

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Written by Eric Fiorvante, Wild Stew Field Crew Member, with contributions from Jonathan Patt, Field Operations Director.

This hitch, the Wild Stew Field Crew continued work along the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail in the Gila National Forest, picking up where we left off last hitch and working from just north of Forest Road 89 to Sapillo Campground. This area was heavily affected by the 2025 Trout Fire, leaving behind widespread burn damage and a high concentration of hazard trees, eroding slopes, and drainage issues on the trail. A major focus of this hitch was mitigating those risks—identifying, felling, and clearing fire-weakened trees that threatened the trail corridor, and stabilizing slopes and tread as part of preventive maintenance.

Despite the burn severity, conditions during the hitch were favorable, with mild temperatures, partial cloud cover, and relatively calm winds—ideal for work on exposed, burned slopes! In addition to cutting 827 dead, hazard trees along the trail corridor, the crew made substantial progress on tread improvements. We completed 1.4 miles of trail work, installing 89 drainage features to better manage water flow and reduce erosion. In areas where the backslope was actively failing, we widened the tread and reinforced the trail using log crib walls placed just below the critical edge. Six crib wall structures were installed to stabilize these sections and improve long-term durability.

As for the Trout Fire: despite the name, we were unable to confirm any direct involvement from trout. Foster conducted a brief investigation at Lake Roberts after work, but after only turning up a lone bluegill, we’re considering the matter resolved for now.

We also had the opportunity to interact with several hikers, mountain bikers, and equestrians along the trail, many of whom expressed appreciation for the work being done. It’s always rewarding to see the immediate impact of these efforts in such a well-loved and widely traveled corridor.

This hitch marked the final week (at least for now) for two of our crew members, Dexter and Ryan. Their contributions to the crew have been significant, and they will be missed out in the field. We wish them the best on their summer adventures.

The post wild stew field crew: After the Fire — CDT Recovery Continues in the Gila appeared first on Wild Arizona.

Last week, our crew of four hiked to Fossil Springs for the lovely swimming — and while there, we also removed some invasive Himalayan Blackberries. We hiked in from the Flume Trailhead and made it to camp by Wednesday evening. With the help of Eve from Friends of the Verde River, we flagged out the priority areas of Blackberries and we were treating them by Thursday morning.

In total we cleared 0.11 acres of Blackberry, cutting and applying herbicide to 17,282 stems in total. We spent three days working in the highest upstream patch of Blackberry (site 1) removing 0.08 acres and dabbing 9,993 stems with herbicide. We then spent three days working near the main public camping area (site 2) removing 0.03 acres and dabbing 7,289 stems with herbicide. Site 2 was more technical due to working around native Box Elders and removing downed trees to access the Blackberry. 

While on hitch we also made a couple of new friends. We found a Rattlesnake at site two and a Frog around our lunch spot! We tried to recruit them to our team but the Rattlesnake wasn’t happy about us being there and Frog was trying to find his true love. We wish them both luck! Everyone’s favorite part of the project was swimming during lunch and after work. The weather was absolutely perfect for cooling off in the water and taking a little break from the heat and hard work. It was also Grace’s last hitch with us. We all wish her the best of luck with her next steps!

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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.

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Written by Davis Mullins, Wild Stew Field Crew Member

Summer has returned! Arizonans and adjacent western Americans were overjoyed this past week at the absolutely lovely temps that we were so graciously gifted by our good friend the heat dome. Summer is the time all true desert dwellers crave and wish for and it was truly a blessing to be able to experience the 100+ degrees as early as March. Even more fortunately we got to return to two old project sites: Queen Creek in Superior and Palo Verde Park off Broadway in Tucson.

We started our hitch in Queen Creek, where we were primarily retreating old Tree of Heaven stands and any other invasive species we saw, including African sumac, Mexican Palo Verde, and Canary Island Date Palms. Our method of treatment this time around was cut stump: following several rounds of previous treatment, we were now cutting the Tree of Heaven as low as we could and giving the stump a spray with an herbicide mix if the tree showed signs of being alive. The slash was then moved out of the floodplain and dispersed where it wouldn’t resprout or act as a ladder fuel for the riparian trees. It shouldn’t be long before these vegetative menaces stop terrorizing our beloved town of Superior.

By Friday we completed our work in the Creek and redirected our efforts to the big city. In Tucson we worked in two different areas: Palo Verde Park and Sunland Vista, both project sites via the Tucson Storm to Shade program. Our main goal was once again the removal of invasive species, though our enemies and methods of dealing with them differed. This project has placed bounties (dead only) on Stinknet, Cheeseweed, London Rocket and Mathiola, just to name a few. We spent the bulk of the last five days of our hitch hand pulling these outlaws. Aside from this, we removed metal cages protecting planted trees, picked up trash, cleared the streets of plants that were blocking clear views of turn areas, and of course supported local businesses by going out for lunch. Not too bad for our first summer hitch.

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