Written by Kile Stumbo, Wild Stew Field Crew Assistant Crew Leader.
On our most recent hitch, we returned to the Gila Wilderness in western New Mexico and began work on the Holt-Apache Trail, a major connecting trail off the Crest which has not been able to receive much attention since the 2012 Whitewater–Baldy fire.
We gave our newest crew member, Max, a proper trail welcome by hiking nearly 5 miles up the Crest Trail on the first day to set up camp at Hummingbird Saddle, which lies at just above 10,000′ elevation. From our camp, we enjoyed incredible views of the Gila Wilderness and surrounding mountain ranges, while the beautiful Milky Way and thousands of stars twinkled above us.
The next day, after a detailed safety briefing, we split into saw teams of two people each and hiked out several more miles to the start of the worksite where we began the process of cutting all the fallen logs across the trail. Our higher level sawyers teamed up with our newer sawyers and each worked with them for several days at a time before rotating so that everyone could gain additional perspective working with multiple people. On Friday evening, we happily welcomed Lynne, our Stewardship Program Director, who stayed and worked with us through the weekend.
From there, the bulk of the crew continued cutting logs while Lynne brushed the trail ahead of us, sawing and lopping young aspens and shrubs in the trail corridor. The first mile of this trail had been cleared several miles before and so went by quickly—but then we got into the thick of the deadfall and progress slowed considerably.
As we rotated saw teams, we realized that two of the teams were practically twins. We dubbed Kile and Joe’s team “Jile”, and Dexter and Max’s became “Maxter”.
The onset of autumn was upon us, with a wonderful canvas of yellow, orange, and red-colored aspens dotting the mountainsides. During our evenings back at camp we enjoyed incredibly vibrant sunsets along with the beautiful fall foliage.
Many of us sampled the delicious wild raspberries found along much of the trail. Kile collected some rose hips for tea, and Dexter collected some gooseberries to add to morning oatmeal. We also met several hikers, including a man with two donkeys on a long pack trip through the Wilderness who had found his way out past us on the Holt–Apache Trail and decided to turn back and head a different way due to all the deadfall ahead.
We said goodbye to Lynne and Jonathan on Monday morning. We had experienced some rain on and off our last few days, enjoying a mix of sunshine and clouds helping to keep us relatively cool. On Monday, we finished clearing logs (388 total over the hitch) off the first 2 miles of the trail to Apache Cabin, a Forest Service structure just off the Holt–Apache Trail, and then briefly explored the cabin and various old knick knacks and tools, including a very old rusty crosscut saw.
On our last full workday, we went back through and brushed most of the portion of the trail we had worked so far, opening up the corridor on 1.1 miles of overgrown trail and reestablishing tread for 0.25 mile. That evening, we all participated in an appreciation circle for Ollie, who will be leaving our crew in November. Since we’re returning to two crews next hitch, some of our crew won’t see them on the next few hitches in October. We all shared our compliments and appreciation for the incredibly kind, caring, passionate, and hard-working human that is Ollie. They will be sorely missed!
On Wednesday after breaking camp and packing up, we hiked out and made our long trek back to Tucson. We’ll be back for two more hitches this fall continuing to open up this important and scenic trail. We hope you’ll come out and check it out, perhaps while hiking the Gila Centennial Trail!
