By Rachael Taylor

All of the snow we got in January sure has been a sight! Perhaps you’ve watched your dog happily run out into the white wonderland, only to promptly drop from sight in fresh heaps of powder. Have you ever wondered how even smaller animals, like rodents, survive in all of this snow?

Believe it or not, there’s a whole little world scurrying beneath many of the snowy fields blanketing our winter landscapes. Subnivean, a fancy-sounding word derived from the Latin sub (under) and nives (snow), is the name of this life zone. This zone lies in the space that can form above the earth and below the snowpack. It is made up of tunnels, rooms, and air vents that various rodents make. Regardless of outside air temperature, the subnivean zone stays around 32 degrees all winter, making it an ideal habitat for mice, voles, and other small rodents to avoid predation, find food, and stay warm.

Rodents in the subnivean zone aren’t the only things staying busy this winter! SJMA’s education team is back, carrying on the tradition of school snowshoeing lessons. Groups of up to 50 students don their winter gear, excitedly load their school buses, and head into the mountains where they meet SJMA’s educators and volunteers for lessons on winter watersheds, surviving and thriving in winter, and subnivean zones. For some of these students, it’s the first time they have ever been snowshoeing, and their excitement is contagious!

In addition to winter lessons, our education team is preparing for our fast approaching spring and summer seasons. Next up we have our Spring Break Camp where we will spend the week adventuring throughout the snowy mountains and warming desert. Students will learn about the ecosystems, waterways and ancestral ways of life in the Southwest.

In April and May, our San Juan Science Ramblers after school program will pick back up. This is a perfect opportunity for kids to stretch their restless legs as we hit the local trails and explore the emerging flora and fauna of spring.

Finally, our increasingly popular six weeks of elementary-aged Junior Naturalist Field Camps will return this summer, along with our two weeks of middle school Adventure Camps. These weeklong summer camps are a warm welcome after the winter months, and a great opportunity to learn in a very hands-on way about our local ecosystems and natural environment. For a few delightful months, when the long hours of sunlight lead to a plethora of life popping among our local mountains and waterways, we are presented with an ideal outdoor learning laboratory. SJMA’s science-based summer camps bring students outdoors where they can observe first hand the intricacies of the spectacular natural environment that surrounds us.

Until then, our education team will be busy with snow programs, some of which you can join! Come on up to Andrews Lake for our free Snow Science and Social events on various Saturdays to learn about the snow pack while traversing the landscape on skis or snowshoes.

For more information about all of these programs, visit: www.SJMA.org/Learn.

Rachael Taylor, a Community Education manager at SJMA, is passionate about getting kids outside and seeking water-related adventures.

By Rachael Woodie

Located in the foothills north of Mancos and set against the backdrop of the prominent La Plata Mountains, you can find a web of trails meandering through ponderosa pines as far as the eye can see. This peaceful place offers opportunities for solitude, hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, and cross country skiing. Perhaps you have visited the Chicken Creek trail system to walk your dog in the warming Spring months as the Oregon grape and spring beauty flowers begin to emerge. Or maybe you have traversed this landscape on your cross country skis, soaking in the still winter landscape muffled in snow. While Chicken Creek offers plentiful recreational opportunities, its potential for stewardship work also abounds. 

In 2020 San Juan Mountains Association (SJMA) entered into a partnership with the Forest Service and the National Forest Foundation to embark on stewardship projects at Chicken Creek. These projects include installing new trail signs, mitigating social trails, and helping to engage the public in how to be good stewards of this beautifully forested land. 

SJMA has not been alone in conducting conservation work at Chicken Creek. A collaborative partnership has formed around this area to include Mancos Trails Group, the Forest Service, and the help of youth from SJMA’s various education programs. Included in this has been the youth from Deer Hill who helped SJMA install new trail signs at Chicken Creek this summer. The hands-on experiences that these teenagers gained is what helps form the foundation of our next generation of land stewards. In physically investing in this conservation work, these youth were able to see the tangible results of their hard work and the benefit that they could bring to both the landscape and the surrounding community. They learned that by installing trail signs, they could not only show recreationists the way to go, but also help them stay on the trail and prevent unnecessary damage to the surrounding flora. 

In addition to the amazing work of the Deer Hill youth, SJMA’s Forest Fridays program also brought local middle school youth to Chicken Creek to invest in stewardship work while learning about the natural environment. Finally, SJMA’s Forest Ambassadors have given many of their summer hours to continuing the work of trail signage and engaging trail users in conversations about the conservation work that they are doing. 

The work to responsibly steward Chicken Creek has been a communal effort and SJMA is grateful to our various community partners for all of their help!

National Public Lands Day (NPLD)

We are just around the corner from NPLD, the nation’s largest volunteer day for public lands! NPLD was established in 1994 to celebrate and steward our nation’s beautiful public lands. This year NPLD is on September 25th and SJMA has several projects planned. For our main project this year we are collaborating with Canyon of the Ancients National Monument to restore the Bradfield Bridge Campground and Dolores River put-in. We encourage you to get involved with your local public lands, whether that’s joining an organized project, picking up trash with a friend, or enjoying the “Fee-Free Day” at National Parks. To learn more or if you are interested in joining SJMA’s activities on this day, please reach out to Erica Tucker at etucker@sjma.org.

Rachael Woodie is the Community Education Specialist for SJMA. In her spare time you can find her seeking some water-related adventure; on Durango’s lakes and rivers, or across the Pacific Ocean .  

By Adriana Stimax

Summer creeps, SJMA leaps 

Imagine yourself as a kid again. It’s spring and you can hardly sit still in class as you gaze out the window and watch puffy clouds drift by on a warm breeze. The early flowers have poked their heads above ground and summer is so close you can feel it. You daydream about hot days that seem to stretch on and on forever. Everyone is buzzing with energy and ready to run out the door the second the bell rings. 

As summer unfolds before us, everything shifts gears. Young and old alike are energized with the longer days. Everything is so busy and full of life. But, it may no longer feel like the endless days of sun and play that it once did when you were child. Now the responsibilities of adulthood weigh heavily on our shoulders, taking much of our time. Each precious summer feels shorter and shorter. If you blink, you might miss it. Although there may no longer be someone at home making dinner so you can stay out until dark, we still must find time to go outside and play. 

Recent science has found that spending time outside is very beneficial for our mental and physical health. In Japan they call it forest bathing, and it’s even prescribed as a treatment by doctors. Although that may not come as a surprise to you, our culture treats outdoor time as a luxury not a necessity. It’s considered a recreational activity and not something fundamental for our health and happiness. 

At San Juan Mountains Association, we are passionate about getting people of all ages outside and engaged with their public lands in a sustainable fashion. This summer we will be offering a variety of ways to get active outdoors. For adults, SJMA’s interpretive programming offers free community hikes to learn about edible plants, geology, archeology and more. You definitely don’t want to miss our springtime full moon hike through Sand Canyon while learning about the human history of the area. 

For the younger generation, SJMA is offering summer camps available for rising first graders through 17 year olds. Our state child care licensed camps are led by fun, experienced outdoor educators, inspiring the next generation of conservationists. Our grade-school Junior Naturalist Field Camp is returning this summer to offer kids a space to learn, play, and make friends safely outside. We’re also excited to announce a new Adventure Camp for older kids aged 13-17 in both La Plata and Montezuma Counties. In addition to spending days packed full of exploration, students will have the opportunity to spend one night camping in the mountains.

Last year we saw a huge increase in visitors to public lands and open spaces, driven by the need to get out of the house and away from the endless screen time. For the first time, many people are realizing the value of our wild spaces. There is an opportunity to shift our culture to one that not only values time spent outside as an important part of daily health, but understands why it’s important to do so in a responsible manner. 

For more information about summer programming visit sjma.org/learn or contact Education Director Adriana Stimax at astimax@sjma.org.

By Mike Bienkowski

With snow and subzero temperatures and feet of snow one week, then warm sun followed by rain and thunderstorms and t-shirt weather the next, it seems like the weather is very confused about what season it is.  Regardless of the wild weather, the days will grow longer, the sun stronger, the bears will start to stir and the birds will break into song.

Spring is a magical time to spend long afternoons rambling in the outdoors, reconnecting with the rhythms of nature and delighting in the almost daily changes as flowers pop, birds return, and animals big and small come out of dormancy.  Anyone who has ever spent time with young children outdoors knows that they are perfectly equipped to find joy in the small details of a landscape returning to life.  Hiking with kids, you stop a lot, and inevitably notice things you never would have otherwise.  Kids adventure outdoors much the way they live–occupied with the present moment and fully enraptured by their immediate surroundings.

While many Durangatangs associate SJMA with dreamy alpine Instagram photos, our information booth at the Ice Lakes trail, or encountering Forest Ambassadors in the Weminuche, you may not know that we are also a state-licensed childcare provider perfectly equipped to help children explore the way they do best–up close with the landscape and immersed the the plethora of beauty at eye and ground level.  Come April, SJMA will once again be offering after-school enrichment for elementary students.  These programs, called the San Juan Science Ramblers, take science education into the forest, where students learn about nature and ecology by getting their hands–and hiking shoes–dirty.

With experienced educators as guides, kids explore topics specific to place and season, in ways that can only be done on the land.  From wildflowers to edible plants, winter survival to predator-prey adaptations, actual experience in the field makes for memorable learning while developing observation and critical thinking skills, all in a context of fresh air, healthy movement, and much-needed safe social interaction.  Thanks to a partnership with the San Juan National Forest, all of these programs take place on local public lands, accessible within fifteen minutes of town.

As a kick-off to after-school enrichment, SJMA is also offering a weeklong Spring Break Camp the week of March 15th – 19th.  From exploring desert ecology and archaeology at Sand Canyon, to learning about indigenous culture at the Southern Ute Cultural Center, investigating snow science and winter ecology and building snow caves at Molas Pass, and taking on some of the most rewarding hikes right in our backyard, this camp will incorporate hands-on learning into the ultimate Durango stay-cation for youths aged 6 – 11.

It is SJMA’s mission to empower people to explore, learn, and protect the amazing public lands in our backyard.  We believe that in connecting the youngest generations to the natural world and helping them fall in love with it, ethics of conservation and stewardship will inevitably be woven into our future.  For more information on camps or to register, visit sjma.org/learn or contact Education Director Adriana Stimax at astimax@sjma.org.

Mike Bienkowski is a former secondary science teacher and educator with Durango Nature Studies who now works for San Juan Mountains Association as the curriculum coordinator for education programs. 

By Mike Bienkowski

It is early June, and we are five minutes into our first day of San Juan Mountains Association’s “San Juan Ramblers” nature camp.

Twenty kids have gathered in a small field near the upper Junction Creek Trailhead. They play games, search the high grass for insects and make nature journals from a box of craft supplies. A typical enough scene for a Monday morning, but my colleague and I exchange apprehensive glances. We are already exhausted. This is the most human contact any of us have had in months, and undoubtedly everyone, counselors and kids alike, is already thinking, “And we have how many more hours of this?”

We begin to walk, and within minutes everyone has dropped back into the wonder of the present moment. Blooming flowers, verdant green, the golden filtered light and the popping colors of butterflies quickly erase any anxiety or apprehension.

After a day spent filling basins with nymphs collected from the stream, sketching wildflowers, building forts and lizard homes, and catching up with friends amid the safety of open air, the kids are all smiles as they return to the trailhead and their waiting parents, the colorful face-coverings the only indication that anything is different in the world.

I am amazed each day at how naturally learning happens in the outdoors. Young children are very much in their “explorer” phase of life. They are wired to connect to the world around them, which is still so new.

Their excitement shows up in many ways – from one child exuberantly declaring, “Lookit! We got a biggie big BIG big!” in reference to the giant stonefly nymph he just pulled from the stream to the enraptured silence of an entire group, as a harrier emerges from the ponderosas and circles us noiselessly before sweeping off toward a new clearing.

Learning in our programs tends to follow the same model – a memorable experience involving direct contact with something wild serves as an anchor point for learning. Once captured by the experience of the harrier circling, suddenly questions about flight adaptations, hunting strategies and predator-prey interactions become far more relevant and real.

While the benefits of outdoor learning are real and easily observable, the impacts go far beyond content and standards. These days, we live our lives amid a constellation of stimuli that pull our attention in multiple directions at once. We get caught up in stories about how things are different than we remembered them, or in anxieties about planning for an uncertain future. Mix this with the increased access to information afforded by technology, and we have a recipe for very unsettled energy indeed.

Children are not impervious to this energy – they absorb it, carry it and feel the weight of it, just like adults do. Nature offers a symphony of sights, sounds, smells, textures and sensations, which capture children’s attention, stimulate their senses and imaginations, and immerse them fully in the present moment so they can focus on what they are wired to do – explore, connect and learn to love.

SJMA continues to offer nature education year-round. Fall programming includes after-school hiking and outdoor science camps, school-based nature enrichment and teacher education workshops. For more information about our programming or to enroll your child, visit our After-School Program page.