Grace and the Springs Team (Tara, and Tali and myself) joined forces last week for a combined Wilderness Monitoring/spring surveying trip in the Wee Thump, South McCullough, and New York Mountains areas. These areas are surrounded by Lands with Wilderness Characteristics that we hope will one day receive Wilderness protection, so it’s important to keep track of their condition.

The Spring Stewardship Team kicked off their volunteer spring monitoring program on January 6th with a virtual volunteer training. We had an overwhelming response and turnout! More than 100 people tuned in, including 50 new volunteers to Friends of Nevada Wilderness! It was amazing to see such a strong show of support for the new program. We covered background about springs, how to collect and submit data, staying safe in the field, and the next steps for volunteers.

We were very impressed with how much the attendees participated and asked great questions! Volunteers who attended the training will be able to independently collect valuable springs data on Clark County public lands whenever they want with this safe, contact-free opportunity.

UPDATE: The springs monitoring crew (Talia, Tara, and myself) has just returned from a productive spring surveying trip in Gold Butte National Monument! In three days, we surveyed 18 springs, bringing the grand total of springs surveyed since August 2020 to 82!