In the summer of 2024, working with the Rio Grande National Forest, the GMUG hired their first all-Native American field crew using money from the Greater Rocky Mountain Resource Advisory Committee. On the GMUG, the crew constructed handline to help contain the future Horsefly prescribed fire. They used chainsaws and hand tools to remove vegetation along one edge of the unit, which will allow for a safe and effective prescribed fire.

The project came about through a partnership with Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps to offer land management opportunities to young Native Americans. ALCC’s goal is to strengthen indigenous peoples’ connections to their native lands and to careers with the Forest Service.

The 2024 Partners trip, led by trip leader Jen Lair, boat operator John Napier, and assistants Nichole Sanchez and Stephen Yazzie, served two ALCC crews and based out of Arizona and New Mexico and one all-Indigenous Southwest Conservation Corps Crew based out of Colorado. The youth and young adults on this trip belonged to a diversity of Tribes in the Southwest and beyond.

Five Fremont County college students traveled to world’s highest peak to test climate sensors in partnership with historic all-Black expedition