Photo Courtesy NPS
BY TOM RIBE
Caldera Action
Let’s Help the Caldera Staff Help the Public
One of the most important elements of the national park experience is the opportunity to learn about a place so you have a deeper relationship with that place. The National Park Service’s mission is deeply tied to public education and passing knowledge across the generations.
Right now, the Valles Caldera National Preserve staff is focused on its education and interpretation programs as we enter the new year. As a new park, the park staff wants to greatly increase the quality and number of signs that visitors can read in the field to learn about the Preserve, and they plan to put in new trailhead signs and markers along trails. But, given severe budget constraints, they are calling on their supporters and regular visitors to help fund their push for new signage.
There are an estimated $50,000 of sign-related costs coming up in the next 2-3 years for interpretive projects at History Grove, Cerro La Jara, Sulphur Springs, and numerous trailheads and hiking trails throughout Valles Caldera.
The Preserve’s friends group, Los Amigos de Valles Caldera, is spearheading a fund-raising effort to help the Park Service raise some of the $50,000 needed to pay for educational signs throughout the Preserve. Cadera Action strongly supports this effort and we hope you can help. The Amigos have a match happening if you donate before the end of December. Their goal is $5000. Let’s see if we can exceed that goal.
By donating you will help inform thousands of visitors about the beauty and science of the Preserve and help with trail signs and markers. Donate by clicking here. Or you can write a check and mail it to: PO Box 31952, Santa Fe, NM 87594.
The Story of the Reluctant Christmas Tree
About 60 years ago, a white fir sprouted in the moist soils of upper Bandelier National Monument near Highway 4. It sunk its roots in the soils on the rim of the old volcano and survived fires, heavy snowstorms, droughts, and the chaos of the nearby highway. It had fine form, branching widely and evenly and standing a proud 10 feet tall. It enjoyed soft summer rains, and the soft snow decorated its limbs by winter.
Then one day in late November, a truck pulled over and a man got out with a saw. He approached the tree, looking it over and sizing it up. He knelt in the shallow snow and cut the tree down at its base. He had found his Christmas tree for the year, or so he thought.
As he was finishing, he heard a truck on the highway come to a sudden stop. He looked up and there was a National Park Service law enforcement truck. The ranger got out, came over to the man and over the next half hour went through the process of issuing him a citation for violating National Park Service regulations by cutting a tree on national monument land.
The no-doubt disappointed man took his citation and drove away, leaving the tree and the ranger. The odds of a ranger catching this tree poacher red-handed are very low, but it happened. Cutting trees or firewood in Bandelier (or the Valles Caldera) is prohibited to protect the wild nature of these places.
The ranger loaded the tree into his truck and took it to Bandelier’s Visitor Center. Today if you go in, you can see this crime victim transformed into a beautiful Christmas tree in the Visitor Center.
(We all need to know our land agency boundaries. You can get Christmas tree cutting permits for National Forest land. Contact your local US Forest Service ranger district.)