Cottonwood Gulch Expeditions

In 2023, Cottonwood Gulch (cge) served 137 summertime trekkers with over 5,000 days in the field and over 1,500 trekkers with our school partners across the calendar year. Cge partnered with 22 schools and community organizations in leading trips ranging from a single day to extended overnight Expeditions. Cge completed their fifth year of the students in wilderness initiative in partnership with the wilderness society. The program consisted of 10 classroom sessions and 8-10 days of field-based learning. Cge continued the youth conservation corps partnership with a crew of 8 students doing restoration work on public lands for 6 weeks in the summer of 2023. Other continuing partnerships included: the forest stewards guild, ancestral lands conservation corps, chizh for cheii, nols wilderness medicine, and bernalillo county/bachechi open space. Finally, cge continued implementing its strategic plan with four key goals: 1) provide immersive programming for a changing world; 2) strengthen and diversify the Gulch community; 3) model environmental stewardship; and 4) invest in operations and infrastructure.