By Nick McKey

I got the first text from a friend to go skiing on October 21st this year. Safe to say with this early cold snap, we’re all looking forward to the winter rituals after a hot summer. I’ll say, I’m a summer guy myself, I’d rather be on my bike, in a t-shirt, with the light not leaving until 9pm or later. But, with holidays on the horizon, and it invokes now-happy memories of my dad making me stand in the street making sure the wreaths on the front porch pillars at my childhood home back in Michigan were level.

The rituals I’ve been dropped into here at the San Juan Mountains Association (SJMA) office are a little less Christmas Story. When I interviewed for my position in late June, I was told that I would be immersed in the holiday spirit starting in September with our “Christmas Trees for Conservation” fundraiser. This is SJMA’s only fundraising event, and it provides critical support for all of our stewardship and education programs. I’m so thankful for my old man helping me love the holidays. Every time we’ve driven out to Beaver Meadows, the location of our tree harvest, I have to remind myself that it’s not normal to want to play Christmas music in September.

Out in Beaver Meadows, a sleepy little spot northeast of Bayfield, we’ve been busy counting, measuring, and marking White Firs to stock our Christmas Tree Lot down at the D&SNGRR lot. These White Firs, whilst a staple of an idyllic pine forest, are the perfect ladder fuel. Unlike their larger, more fire-adapted cousin, the ponderosa, they don’t drop their lower branches, their sap is an incredibly efficient fire starter, and the juvenile pines are super adept at crowding around other trees. This makes the white fir a terrifying multiplier for any fire that would come through the forest. SJMA’s fundraiser has the added benefit of improving forest health, albeit in a small, but meaningful way.

Our goal is to take 450 of these white firs from the forest and put them in homes for the holidays. The humble white fir doesn’t drop its needles for quite some time after being cut, usually they’re fairly symmetrical, and we get them cut at the right height to fit just right for Durango homes. But obviously, cutting, hauling, moving, netting, and selling 450 Christmas trees is too big of a task for  SJMA’s permanent staff, and that’s where we ask the community to give us a hand! There’s a task, cookies, and hot drinks for everyone who wants to pitch in and help, whether you want to sell trees or get a peek into what fuel mitigation looks like!

We’re looking for all the help we can get on our cut day, which is Saturday, November 23rd at Beaver Meadows. Having worked in conservation for the last 4ish years, I can tell you that the more hands we’ve got, the more efficient we can be. Our biggest bottleneck is getting trailers to get them down from Beaver Meadows to our lot at the D&SNGRR, so if you’ve got a trailer you don’t mind potentially getting a little muddy, please consider signing up! If you’re not interested in driving trailers, we’ve also got a massive need for volunteers to help move and net the trees up at Beaver Meadows and to help set up the lot in town. If you’ve got the time and can switch from Thanksgiving spirit to Christmas and back on that Saturday, we’d love to have you join us.

Once the trees are down in the lot, we sell them from the 29th of November until they’re all sold, so if removing trees from the mountains isn’t your speed, we invite you to join us at the tree lot. There’s a job suitable for all skill levels every day starting on the 29th. Located downtown, in the middle of the holidays, it’s an engaging time slinging trees to folks. Looking through the pictures from past tree lots, I have seen so many pictures of old friends, so even though it’s my first Christmas Tree lot with SJMA, I know it’s going to be a hoot of a time with new and old friends celebrating the holidays, supporting SJMA, and helping our public lands.

Nick McKey, SJMA’s Volunteer Coordinator