Valles Caldera National Preserve

[SilentButDeadly]

I'm on my last day of a two week trip to the Valles Caldera National Preserve in the Jemez mountains of northern New Mexico. This is the second year of my research up here on forest fire history. The Caldera is closed to the public, and does not allow shed collecting, but I've been busy snapping photos...

 

I've got my whole crew searching for fire scarred trees and secondarily elk antlers, a few of them have picked up the shed-hunting bug. We've found on average 4-5 sheds a day, with 10 sheds and a skull w/ antlers being our best day. I didn't take pictures of all of them since I was slinging a chainsaw most days, but I made sure we got photos of the best.

 

Here are the highlights.

 

First shed, one hour into the first day.

 

couple of little browns

 

a nice 5x6 set I found laying side by side next to an aspen log that had been chewed like corn-on-the-cob

 

an awesome lion kill 5x6

 

the biggest shed I found on the trip a 7x with a sticker (almost 8x), amazingly the same side from last year was laying about 50 yards away; I searched the whole meadow the next night (even planned an un-scheduled fire-scar sampling afternoon a week later around the same meadow and couldn't turn up either of the opposite sides. Interestingly, I think I filmed this bull out in the Valles Grande last September two days before my bow hunt. Really humbling to find a couple sheds from him.

 

and for anyone left wondering, my research involves looking at historical (mostly dead, either logged or died of natural causes) trees and their fire scars to determine what the fire regimes of these mountains and their grasslands were before European settlement.

 

a couple of photos of dropping snags with fire scars, and what our raw samples look like before we sand them up in the lab

 

 

and BTW, I was wearing Grong Orange every day (see my helmet, saw, and chaps)!

[firstcoueswas80]

Thats awesome Tyson! Sheds and fallin' trees! I enjoy both of them! What a hard two weeks at the office... Want to trade jobs for a pay period?

[BRYCE CANYON]

Nice chainsaw!

[IHunt2live]

Very Nice!!!!! Looks like a fun time.

Thats whats missing from my job. The chance to get out of the truck and keep my eyes open or sheds. maybe when we get to the white mt. I'll have some chances to get out looking for some sheds.

[jackshoe]

Why is the Caldera closed to the public?

[WFGinNM]

Nice pictures SBD.

 

Jackshoe,

The Feds don't want the dirty public messing it up. They think they can find a way to make it pay for itself without pissing off any user groups.

 

--Bill

[jackshoe]

What's the difference between the feds not allowing the public access and the private ranch that it was before the feds bought it with our money not allowing public access? Seems to be the same result to me.

 

[WFGinNM]

jackshoe,

PM me, I don't want to hijack SilentButDeadly's topic. He has some real nice pics here that folks should see, the Valle is quite a place.

 

--Bill