September is Brush Month!

Monsoons have arrived, the brush is thriving and crowding the trails. Let’s make one big push in the month of September to clear the brush on our local trails in preparation for the cooler months and ideal trail season in Southern New Mexico. Brush month is partnership between SNMTA, Friends of Organ Mountains – Desert Peaks, and Monumental Loop to encourage everyone to get out and brush our trails during September.

Brush work will be done on official trails (see maps and list of trails) and is authorized by a Volunteer Agreement between the Southern New Mexico Trail Alliance and the Bureau of Land Management. BLM trusts us to do good work on official trails and SNMTA trusts you to be good stewards of the trails, public lands, and representative of SNMTA. Please follow the brief guidelines below when brushing. If you would like further guidance or tools, SNMTA members can join you in your brushing adventures.

Brush Month Guidelines:

1. Brushing can be self organized to fit your schedule. Solo, with a friend, a group, or part of a trail event, at your convenience. You pick the trail, when, and how long you want brush, report your work to SNMTA.
2. Only perform brushing on official trails. These are the only trails that SNMTA has authorization to perform trail work on. Consult the trail list, maps, and ask SNMTA if you have questions.
3. When brushing, follow these tips:
   1. Think about the users (i.e. bikers, hikers, runners, and equestrians) and aesthetics. Clear the brush wide enough to accommodate different users. Also, consider the view of approaching users and clear enough to make it safe. Consider clipping less on the downhill side to keep users in the middle of the trail. Consider clipping less to slow users down in areas where speed and collisions may occur.
   2. In general, clip brush back 3 feet (approximately an arm’s length) from the center of the trail. This especially goes for fast growing shrubs like creosote, white thorn, scrub oak, and cat claw.
   3. For slower growing plants such as ocotillo, yucca, sotol, cacti; use good judgement when brushing. If in doubt, leave it. Prickly pear cactus is okay to clip but leave other succulents.
   4. Don’t give any plant a mullet! This means clip all around the shrub or consider removing it entirely. Don’t worry about grasses and annuals, they will tend to get knocked back with use.
   5. Toss the brush out of site on the downhill side of the trail. If there is erosion or an unofficial trail nearby, you can throw it on there.
   6. Note other trail maintenance needs. We’ll use these to plan future trail days.
   7. Report your efforts to SNMTA. Record the number of people, hours worked, distance of trail cleared, trail maintenance needs, and location (i.e. trail name, approximate location on trail, etc.). A GPS track or waypoints of the start and end points of work would be great! Submit this information via the online form at Brush Month Reporting or email to southernnmtrailalliance@gmail.com