Good day, all you Arizona wilderness enthusiasts! What a joy it is to be back with the Wild Arizona faithful after a summer away for bike racing and touring in Europe and Vermont. How I’ve missed the molding of each unique trail segment with my own hands. The silent observation of flickers, javelinas, butterflies, Cooper’s hawks, deer, and other critters. The hours spent creating tier lists of everything under the sun with the help of your tool-wielding comrades. Yes, returning to this crew and this work is like putting on that old pair of well-worn, well-fitting leather work gloves. Familiar, warm, comfortable. Now, we put those gloves to the task.

On this bout of environmental stewardship, we were treated to a two-for-one special. Four days were spent easing back into the rhythm of things, working on Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) projects in our backyard. This collaboration with the City of Tucson allows us to make a difference right in our community while going home each night. A win-win! But what is GSI? GSI is a system of utilizing rainwater to create vibrant natural spaces, thereby reducing hazardous flooding potential, promoting aquifer replenishment, and beautifying urban settings. For about a year, we’ve been maintaining two small parks full of native Sonoran Desert plants to keep them humming along. This time, our work involved pulling invasive plants, picking up trash, clearing sediment traps, and maintaining rock erosion-control structures the crew built this summer. We can now say the Sunland Vista GSI site has no invasive plants! Yup, not a single tiny sprout of Bermuda grass hiding beneath a mesquite. Or so we hope… Of course there’s always something else if you look for long enough. It’s been fun learning to identify local flora with the help of my knowledgeable crewmates. One, Sam, has grown such an eye for it that I hereby nominate him for the illustrious title of “Grassman of the Year”. 

Halfway through our hitch, we split up. Sam stayed back in Tucson to table at Tucson’s biannual Cyclovia event promoting human-centric streets in our fair city. There he showed folks how to use a crosscut saw to cut a souvenir “cookie” of wood. Meanwhile, Rebekkah, Max and I journeyed further afield to the Chiricahua Mountains, where we met Field Operations Director Jonathan on the Snowshed Trail. There we spent four days expanding on work started by the Tohono O’odham Youth Field Camp earlier in the month. The name of the game was widening the corridor, fixing up water bars and drains, widening narrow sections of tread, and degrassification. Grasses were expertly identified by Jonathan, whom I shall hereby nominate as the “Rookie Grassman of the Year”. Tanglehead, sprangletop, blue grama, Lehman’s lovegrass… You show the man a grass, he’ll tell you what it’s thinking. In all, we maintained over 2 miles of trail, while fixing up 19 drains and cutting four logs along the way

Which leads us to the highlight of the hitch: a 20-3 Seattle Seahawks victory over the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night, whose enjoyment was made possible by Max’s Starlink. On our way out of the Chiricahuas, we stopped to grab lunch at the classic Portal Store. On that note, wishing you all a Happy Halloween, and we can’t wait to head out again soon. Next time, we’ll be on boats. 

Go Hawks,

Dexter

The post wild stew field crew: GSI Snowshed appeared first on Wild Arizona.

Written by Rebekah Sutherland, Assistant Crew Leader

This past week, the Wild Stew Crew dug into 4 days of work in the City of Tucson. As we typically work an 8 day hitch, this was a half-sized hitch. These 4 days were a perfect amount of time to make big progress on rock work projects in support the  City of Tucson’s Green Stormwater Initiative (GSI). The crew set out to complete erosion mitigation work at the Sunland Vista GSI site that we had started the previous couple months.

At the Sunland Vista GSI site, there is a series  of basins that capture rainwater, reducing flooding on the streets nearby and providing water to a variety of plants, including shade-giving trees. Additionally, there is a loop trail that circumvents the site, providing neighbors and neighborhood dogs a way to enjoy this shade. After summer monsoon storms that brought heavy flashes of rain, the trail was damaged by heavy water flow that began eroding the surface of the path. Previously, we had 24 tons of rock delivered to the site and began constructing retaining structures that helped retain tread level, support soil retention and plant growth on the hillside, and keep water flowing into basins in the most sustainable way possible. This hitch, we assessed that our work was holding up very well, and so we continued on the same work!

The crew constructed 4 armored bands of rock along the edge of the trail,  2 of which helped create more walkable space around picnic tables that were previously eroding heavily. Additionally, we created sediment traps, terraced steep slopes, and armored the sides of concrete inlets. By the end of the work week, we had used the last bits of our original piles of rock, making this hitch worthy of the award “Tiniest Hitch, Largest Impact”!

At this point, walking through the site looks quite different than it did after those original monsoon storms. Although things are looking great at the moment, we’ll continue to monitor how this place shifts and changes as rain continues to mold the basins. We’ll be ready to address new problems as they come up, and we’ll be excited to see our friendly neighbors on the trail!

The post wild stew field crew:Tiniest Hitch, Largest Impact appeared first on Wild Arizona.

Written by Sam Baggenstos, Conservation & Wilderness Associate

Greetings,

The crew’s most recent hitch was split equally between two geographic areas: the first four days in Queen Creek near Superior, AZ and the last four days in Tucson.

For the first half of the hitch, we continued the invasive plant removal project along Queen Creek that Wild Arizona started several years ago. The project has come a long way since then. Where once were dense groves of tree of heaven, African sumac and date palm are now open areas that are starting to fill in with annual vegetation. Over 95% of the regrowth were small seedlings or saplings less than a couple feet in height. And among all of these plants many of them are tiny plants that are less than three or four inches in height.

One of the plants that was a particular focus of this hitch was the Mexican Palo Verde. If you live in Tucson or other low elevation places nearby you will probably recognize it. It’s the species of Palo Verde that has the long drooping ribbon-like leaves. All other species of Palo Verde in this area have much stubbier leaves. Mexican palo verde, or MPV for short, has a unique cluster of thorns at the base of each leaf: two short thorns branching to the left and right like thorns and one longer one sticking out straight. Once the plant is a foot tall or so it is fairly simple to tell it apart from the other plants nearby in Queen Creek. However, when it is very small (one to five inches) it is very similar to a particular species of mesquite that grows along the creek. We are still learning about this plant, but our current understanding is that the best way to differentiate MPV at this stage is by looking at the cotyledons, which are the first leaves that emerge from the seed in the ground. The MPVs have narrow cotyledons and are fairly smooth, unlike other plants at this stage which tend to have circular cotyledons that are sometimes furrowed or wrinkly.

In our four days at Queen Creek we walked the creek three times, treating with herbicide or hand pulling over 2100 stems of invasive plants. In particular, we treated 113 stems of tree of heaven, 1606 stems of Mexican palo verde, 424 stems of African sumac and 8 palm tree stems. 

For the second half of the hitch we worked at the Sunland Vista Site, one of the two Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) sites that Wild Arizona manages for the city of Tucson. This time around we focused on two things: stabilizing the sides of some of the basins with rock structures and the removal of invasive plants. 

When water flows quickly down a slope (like during a monsoon rainstorm), it can tend to take dirt with it. When this happens over and over again, trenches can begin to form. This in turn speeds the water up which can cause more erosion of dirt. In this way the damage starts to escalate. One way of the ways we chose to address this damage at the Sunland Vista site is by digging in a line of rocks perpendicular to the hill side. This slows the water down, holds the dirt in place and fans the water out into a sheet flowing down the hillside (this is called sheet flow). 

In all we armored around 175 feet of hill side this hitch. This not only helped repair the damage from summer monsoon rain storms but will help prevent further damage from any fall or winter storms. We also removed a variety of invasive plants from four of the basins including tick grass, buffel grass, bermuda grass, Mexican palo verde, puncture vine, Lehmans lovegrass, cheese weed, button grass, Russian thistle and eucalyptus. It was very satisfying to look up the wash after several days of work and only see a veritable garden of native plants exploding in growth from the summer rains. 

All in all, we had a productive and satisfying hitch. 

‘Til next time!  – Sam

The post wild stew field crew: Fighting Plants and Burying Rocks: our time in Queen Creek and Tucson, AZ appeared first on Wild Arizona.

Written by Rebekah Sutherland, Assistant Crew Leader

After almost 5 months away, the Wild Stew Field Crew made their way back to the Circle Seven Trail in the Aldo Leopold Wilderness on the Gila National Forest. This trail climbs approximately 7 miles up Circle Seven Creek to the Continental Divide, and provides access to the Continental Divide Trail/Black Range Crest Trail, Diamond Peak, and various backpacking loop options. We set out with the goal to make this trail passable for hikers, but also to provide access for pack animals to reach the crest to bring supplies up for future work along the crest, as this is currently the shortest of the access trails in the area. We hiked into our trusty campsite Wednesday night, and prepared ourselves for a week of hard work ahead.

Where we left off in May, we had cleared all but the top ¾ of a mile of trail, including part of a  ~½ mile section of trail that hadn’t been found in recent years of scouting. Through the use of Lidar imaging, and lots of exploring, our Field Operations Director and trail mapper extraordinaire, Jonathan, rediscovered and flagged this section of trail for the crew, so we could get right to work. With our crew of 4, we were able to accomplish our goal of opening up the rest of the trail to the crest by brushing dense sections of aspen and locust, cutting 21 logs from the trail, building 3 retaining walls, building 2 armored ramps, constructing lots of cairns, and spot treading sections of tread throughout. The steepness of this section of trail posed many challenges, and we constructed 17 drains to help minimize further erosion on these intense slopes.

The steep grades didn’t just affect our work on the tread. It also posed a challenge for us each day as we hiked up around 2,000 feet of elevation each day to get to our worksite. And most of that elevation gain was impressively packed into about 1 mile of trail. We quickly got used to our heels never touching the ground, and we memorized each section of our hike in. First, you tackle the flats (aka your warm up), after which you scale the waterfall, ascend the hill of despair, traverse the calf crusher side slope, clamber up past God’s Thumb, and finally stumble your wobbly legs up to the crest. Over the course of the week, our knees started to ache, our bodies got fatigued, but we also all got stronger.

Being able to revisit this trail after several months away was a gift! Because several different crews work together to complete all the different projects in the area, we don’t always get to see the completion of the projects we start. This hitch, it felt special to get to walk through the whole trail at the end of the week and see all the work we’ve done this year. Not to mention, revisiting this incredible canyon and looking out over some of the most stunning views in the area is always a treat. Although there will be more work to be done on Circle Seven Trail in the future as trees continue to fall and heavy rains reshape the landscape, there’s a sense of satisfaction in knowing we played a part in getting more people out onto a pretty magical trail.

This past hitch was also the final hitch of our beloved crewmate, Kile Stumbo! Kile’s been working with Wild Arizona for the past 3 years, and we’re excited to cheer him on as he moves on to his next adventure! Kile is an incredibly caring, thoughtful, and fun leader for our crew, and we’ll miss having him around to answer our Question of the Day with a gripping tale, to share good food with, and to dream together about cool new adventures or water catchment systems. Luckily, we’ll still be able to attend his famous movie and game nights and catch up on the exciting new things he’ll be doing. Thanks for everything, Kile!

The post wild stew field crew: Circling Back: Unfinished Business on the Circle Seven Trail appeared first on Wild Arizona.

Written by Max Skolnick-Schur, Field Crew Leader.

We drove up the bumpy McKnight road again to the McKnight Cabin, with plans to continue our work from the previous hitch on the Black Range Crest Trail. We were doing a little bit of everything this week. In total, we brushed and spot-treaded 1.37 miles of trail, cut 67 logs, built six cairns, constructed five drains, and built one check dam. By the end of the hitch, we had worked our way to about 0.15 miles past the junction with Lake Trail #110.

This week our small but mighty crew removed lots of locust, aspen, and raspberry from the trail corridor. Armed with loppers, hand saws, tread tools, and a crosscut saw, the brush did not stand a chance. We were able to move fairly quickly through much of it, opening up the corridor and making the trail much easier to follow. Most of the logs down across the trail were fairly small and quick to cut, but there were also a few larger-diameter trees that took quite a bit more effort to remove.

Throughout the week, we were welcomed by beautiful views of the Gila and Aldo Leopold Wildernesses. Though there were not as many as the last time we were here, the raspberries were still plentiful. A few of us had also attended an invasive plant training the previous week, so we entertained ourselves along the trail by trying to identify the various grasses we encountered.

There were quite a few thunderstorms this hitch as well. Most days we spent at least some portion of the day sheltering from lightning and rain. Even with the storms slowing us down, our small crew still managed to get quite a bit of work done and push farther north along the Crest Trail.

The post wild stew field crew: Return to McKnight — Revenge of the Lightning appeared first on Wild Arizona.

Written by Samuel Baggenstos, Conservation & Wilderness Associate.

Heat and rocks. Erosion and heat. Rocks and erosion. Pick whatever combo of those three words you want and they would accurately describe the experience of our most recent hitch. For eight days we labored in the wild world of Tucson in August, battling the sun, the sweat, the rocks, the dirt, the dogs, the cats, and the cones (more on that later). I don’t want to presume, but it was the sort of hitch that may earn its place in Wild Arizona lore among such infamous events such as “the snow hitch” and “the rainy hitch” and “the windy hitch.” But I don’t have the right to start naming things. A title such as “the hot hitch” can’t be decided by an individual: it must mysteriously emerge on its own in crew parlance.

August 19th through 26th our Wild Stew Field Crew spent our hitch working at Sunland Vista, one of the two Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) sites that Wild Arizona manages for the city of Tucson. There are over 900 GSI assets throughout the city, all managed by Tucson’s Storm to Shade program. Among other things, this program aims to utilize storm water to nourish a biodiverse population of native plants. Essentially the city of Tucson is rewilding the urban landscape one small (or sometimes large) installation at a time, which fits nicely into Wild Arizona’s larger mission of habitat restoration.

Sunland Vista is a 0.3 mile stretch of wash that runs through a neighborhood on the south side of town. This particular area has experienced several high rainfall events recently, causing significant erosion to the accessible foot path that winds along the edge of the wash. Our main goal this hitch was to use medium brown rocks to armor the eroding edge of the path and better retain the compacted decomposed granite that makes up the top of the walking surface.  After receiving 14 tons of medium brown rock via dump truck delivery, we set to work: digging two parallel trenches on the wash side of the path, setting the rock inside these trenches, and filling in the gaps with interlocking rocks (often called rip rap). A secondary task was to address the erosion of parts of the side of the wash. We did this by constructing a sort of terrace on the hillside. We also did a variety of other tasks including grubbing/hand-pulling of non-native invasive plants, trash removal and a variety of other smaller erosion control projects.

All this brings me to a most peculiar event. At the end of each work day, we would mark our remaining piles of unused rock with orange cones to mitigate tripping hazards. One morning, we returned to the site and realized our cones were missing. When we scanned the area we noticed a shopping cart nearby in the wash, sitting upside down and covered in rocks. Contained inside the metal cage was one of our cones. Taped to the bottom of the cart was a rock with a hand written note attached to it that read: “find your last cones.” The hunt was on. After a five minute walk around the site, we found our three other cones, one which was hidden inside a pile of rock with a note taped to it: “why you kill the ant house so find your cones.” It was then I remembered that the previous day I had removed a strange compilation of trash on top of a small ant hill. We believe that this was the ant house in question. So we did what any sensible person would have done: constructed a replacement ant house out of rocks and wrote an apology in the dirt. The next day our cones were untouched. We can only assume the Sunland Trickster was satisfied with our efforts.

On the final Wednesday Rebekah soldiered on solo for the entirety of the final day, while Max and I worked a couple hours and then joined Joe and Jonathan in attending two-day training on Sonoran Desert plant ID taught by Tucson Bird Alliance in collaboration with the Storm to Shade program, which included a classroom day and a field day during which we put our skills into practice by walking around the Sunland Vista site and IDing plants. In invasive plant work, ignorance is bliss. We are now a lot less ignorant about low-elevation invasive grasses, and the wash is looking slightly less blissful as a result. Needless to say, we have work to do in the future.

Happy Trails!

—Sam

The post wild stew field crew: Tucson GSI — Heat, Rock, Erosion and the Sunland Trickster appeared first on Wild Arizona.

Written by Rebekah Sutherland, Assistant Crew Leader.

This past week, the Wild Stew Field Crew returned to the Gila National Forest for a high elevation hitch in the burn scar of the Black Fire. The Black Fire burned over 300,000 acres of forest in 2022. Today, 4 years later, the trails impacted by this fire are in a stage of regrowth where lots of locust (and other thorny plants) have encroached on the corridor, and burned trees have fallen across the trail. With the goal to open up a section of the Black Range Crest Trail #79, we made our way up an impressive, long, and bumpy road to McKnight Cabin where we set up camp amongst a pocket of live trees and soft grass.

We headed north along the Crest Trail from McKnight Cabin with a crosscut saw, loppers, and tread tools, and began clearing fallen trees and sharp plants from the trail. Along with locust, we were faced with dense brambles of raspberry growing into the trail. Hand pulling proved to be a good tactic to clear back the raspberry, although the small thorns often found their way through our gloves. Luckily, we were gifted with ripe sweet berries to incentivize us to continue. At the end of the hitch, we had brushed 1.9 miles of trail, logged out 79 trees, and built 2 drains and  2 cairns. With a small crew of 4, we were quite proud of these accomplishments!

Throughout the week, it was amazing to see the trail unfold before us. This section of the trail follows along the ridge line, and eventually put us at the top of McKnight Mountain, the highest point of the Black Range at 10,144 feet. The views were vast and beautiful, but staying along the crest posed potential hazard as we are still in monsoon season, and a lightning storm at that elevation can be very dangerous. Each day we watched the clouds closely, and only had to retreat to camp once! Instead of scary daytime storms, we mostly received gentle nighttime showers to lull us to sleep in our tents.

With beautiful views, a great campsite, and good weather, there’s not much we could complain about. Some days, the task of brushing a trail can get monotonous, but we keep our minds busy with riveting questions such as “if you could only have 5 sauces for the rest of your life, what would they be?” or “how would this world enforce such sauce restrictions?” We have some ideas about answers to these questions, but overall our actual reality where we get to eat wild raspberries, work outside, and daydream about silly alternate worlds is a pretty good one. We left feeling grateful for that, and returned home to Tucson to eat all the sauces we could ever want.

The post wild stew field crew: A McKnight’s Tale – Back into the Burn appeared first on Wild Arizona.

Written by Sam Baggenstos, Conservation & Wilderness Associate

Greetings from the balmy Mogollon Mountains! This hitch we returned to the Gila National Forest in southwestern New Mexico to continue our work on the Redstone Trail reroute. This reroute moves the Redstone trailhead up to Silver Creek Divide and provides a more sustainable way to get over the ridge from Bursum Road and into the Gila Wilderness. The start of the old alignment of the Redstone Trail was steep, eroding and overall not an enjoyable hiking experience. The new alternate route greatly improves it.

This hitch was a continuation of the work begun earlier in the month which had been cut short by the then rapidly expanding Sacaton Fire which burned through a portion of the Gila high country. Now that the fire had been contained, we were able to safely return to Redstone Trail and pick up where we had left off. After spending the first couple days of hitch cutting the remaining vegetation and logs off the trail, we transitioned into digging in tread (i.e. trail surface) and constructing a sustainable path for hikers and other recreators to enjoy. In all, we dug 0.8 miles of new tread, installed nine drains, felled four snags and cut 73 logs from the trail corridor.

Construction of the Redstone reroute provides a good example of the practical considerations involved in building new trail on public land. Even with careful planning, terrain, vegetation, and other constraints can limit where a trail can be placed. Where sections of the reroute required additional protection from erosion, we constructed grade reversals and drainage dips to direct water across and off the trail rather than allowing it to run down the tread. We also added curves and short switchbacks in steeper areas to reduce the trail’s grade and create a more durable alignment.

Summer trail projects at elevation often produce a wide variety of temperatures and precipitation. This hitch was no exception. Almost every workday began with me dutifully applying sunscreen and ended with me frantically digging through my pack to grab my rain jacket. We experienced several hectic thunderstorms in the middle of the night, one of which sent Max running to the truck after his tent began to fill with water. One afternoon we were forced to quickly retreat to camp after lightning started to strike the ridge above us. The ever-changing weather definitely kept us on our toes!

By the end of the hitch we managed to tie in the reroute to the junction with the old Redstone Trail. Although there are some stretches of tread that should be widened in the future, the whole reroute is now walkable and clear. Redstone Trail, it’s been good knowing you. I’m sure we will see you again in the future!

The post wild stew field crew: Completing the Redstone Reroute appeared first on Wild Arizona.

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.

The post wild stew field crew: Return to Allie Canyon and Tucson GSI Work appeared first on Wild Arizona.

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.

The post wild stew field crew: Gila Summer — Return to Redstone appeared first on Wild Arizona.