A happy new year from Wehinahpay to your family! We kick started our 2022 season with ten inches of powdery snow blanketing the mountains.
Our low temperatures of seven degrees Fahrenheit are drastically different from those experienced by our neighbors in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Although it is only a 52-mile drive from camp to town, there is a 5,000 ft elevation drop; resulting in, typically, 20-30 degrees in temperature difference. We enjoy cooler temperatures throughout the year; however, these lower temperatures make our growing season much smaller than other, warmer areas. Because of our shorter growing season, this makes conservation work to protect our forest even more important. If a fire burns down our trees, they will take longer to regrow and reform the ecosystem, all the while allowing erosion, the regrowth of smaller under brush, and other detrimental things to occur to our forest.
However, snow is the perfect time for slash pile burning! When conservation crews cut down unhealthy trees in a forest, the next step is called “bucking”; which is when they cut the fallen trees into 6-foot logs. After bucking, the logs are piled in a log cabin style and filled with underbrush, branches, small limbs, and anything else on the ground cover that could assist a forest fire in starting. Once these slash piles are made, they are burned in the wintery snow where they will be safe for our conservationists and forests.
This winter wonderland has us at Wehinahpay very excited for our 2022 Winter Adventure! We hope to see you out on the trails.
When was the last time you saw this much snow at Wehinahpay? Drop a comment and tell us your snowy stories.
