New Mexico Volunteers for the Outdoors

In 2024, New Mexico Volunteers for the Outdoors (NMVFO) celebrated its 42nd year of continuous operation. We originated from a 1982 initiative by the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC). The AMC helped organize NMVFO as part of the National Volunteer Project. Since the original three year grant, NMVFO has relied entirely on volunteers to organize and lead projects, and educate the public on how to conserve New Mexico’s public lands. In our 42 years, we’ve completed over 850 trail and restoration projects to improve public lands. This year we completed 39 projects throughout the State. Thirteen of these projects were located in northern New Mexico. A summary of some of these recent projects follows.

In April, NMVFO returned for a third year to the 10,000 acre Galisteo Basin Preserve near the town of Lamy. Our partner was the Commonweal Conservancy, a nonprofit land conservation organization. As in previous years, our work at the Preserve focused on removing barbed wire fencing that endangers raptors and impedes free wildlife movement in and across the preserve. Volunteers removed 1.1 miles of 4-strand fencing.

In June, six NMVFO volunteers joined Continental Divide Trail Coalition staff and volunteers to fix tread In San Pedro Parks. The group cleared trees between the San Gregorio Lake trail head and the Nacimiento Mine, about 6.7 miles.

Also in June, seven volunteers spent four days based at Horsethief Meadow in the Pecos Wilderness clearing tree blowdowns and leaners from about 1.6 miles of the Skyline Trail. The Pecos Chapter of the Back Country Horsemen Association supported the volunteers by packing in tools and equipment and cooking delicious meals for us at a field kitchen they set up at the camp site.

In August, NMVFO volunteers returned to Sugarite Canyon State Park. The group lopped and limbed locust trees on 0.65 miles of Highway 526 and along Lake Alice to improve the view of the lake from the highway and to improve access along the lake. In addition, the group constructed or enhanced 18 drainage diversions along 1.3 miles of trail in the Coal Camp area.

In September, NMVFO volunteers attended a range-management workshop at Santa Fe Conservation Trust's (SFCT) Conservation Homestead in the Galisteo Basin. Volunteers learned how the "bullseye" monitoring technique worked, then employed it at various locales within the preserve. The workshop is part of a long-term effort by the SFCT to monitor and improve Preserve habitat.

In November, we returned to the Preserve and organized a crew of 17 volunteers to remove an additional 1.25 miles of 4-strand barbed wire fence. This habitat restoration project spooled up a total of 5 miles worth of barbed wire that will no longer endanger wildlife or interfere with wildlife movement, and pulled about 1,000' of T-posts remaining from a previous project.

For National Public Lands Day, NMVFO volunteers worked in Pecos Canyon to clean up a mile of Pecos River frontage, an area heavily used by anglers. We also cleaned trash from Rt. 63 frontage and the Dalton Canyon dispersed camping area. We partnered with the Upper Pecos Watershed Association and Santa Fe National Forest on this project.

‍