Category: Trail Projects

Ten NMVFO volunteers partnered with the Albuquerque Wildlife Federation, returning to Limestone Canyon over Labor Day weekend to continue restoration work in Limestone Canyon and Fisher Canyon.

At the beginning of our first workday, Sue, who had worked as a forester with the USFS, gave a short talk and described the historical background of Limestone Canyon, and the timber sale that had started the restoration of the meadow.

My crew went up Limestone, past a pipe fence that had been bent by some past flooding event.

Further up Limestone we found running water in the drainage, from the lightning storm the night before.

We hiked up to a low concrete dam that had been built many years ago by Bill Zeedyk, who pioneered many of the water restoration techniques we would be practicing this weekend.

My group spent the day building “beaver dams” on Limestone to slow water and capture fine sediment from the flow, and using stakes to pin the branches so they would not float away.

The next day my crews built one-rock dams near the confluence of Limestone and Fisher.

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I return to my adopted segment of the CDT, south of Pie Town at the northern tip of the Gila National Forest. I arrive at the southern terminus of the segment Thursday after dark in a downpour, and car camp. The next day I first work my way to Rincon Well, now dry, trying to fix a disappearing trail by scraping grass and building a couple of cairns.

At mid-day I drive to the northern terminus and backpack in. On the climb to the heights are a great deal of tumbleweed, Russian thistle, growing in the tread, which I have not encountered before.

This makes disappearing trail even more invisible. Along the heights are a large number of downed limbs and trees across the trail, pine and juniper. Some are quite large, and I am glad to have brought the KatanaBoy.

Rain started at 6PM, so I had to quit sawing and quickly make camp, not making it to my destination of Eman Well. Sixty-seven blowdowns were cleared. Rain showers continued sporadically through the night.

The next day I started at first light and hiked back to the trailhead at Surprise Tank. (The surprise is that there is no longer a tank at that location.)

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NMVFO and the Albuquerque Wildlife Federation have their annual joint restoration project at Limestone Canyon south of the VLA in the San Mateo Mountains, in about a week, so I went to scout the area. FR 476 is rugged enough to recommend a high-clearance vehicle. Approaching the canyon, signs of a mild recent ponderosa wildfire is visible. I think this is from the Fisher Fire, because I do not remember these scorch marks from last year.

The campsite looked mostly unharmed.

I went upstream in the Limestone drainage to check out structures, one-rock dams for the most part, that we worked on last year. I did not notice recent signs of water flow, or damp sand. I did not see signs of flooding in the past year, but I am just a newbie at restoration and do not see all the clues that our AWF brethren notice.

Then I went up the narrower Fisher Canyon drainage to check out rock structures, including a Zuni bowl we helped build last year. (The bowl shape is hard to make out in photos, but is clear in-person.)

Looking forward to a fine project.

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