The San Juan Mountains Association is in the last stretch of its annual Christmas tree fundraiser, a weekslong affair at the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad parking lot where people can purchase imported balsam trees or white fir trees grown naturally in the San Juan National Forest.
As of midday Saturday, SJMA only had about 120 trees of either variety left after starting the fundraiser in November with close to 1,000 trees for sale.
The Christmas tree fundraiser is SJMA’s only formal fundraiser of the year, and the nonprofit usually sees an outpouring of volunteer support to cut down white firs in the San Juans, transport them and organize them in rows at the D&SNG parking lot for shoppers to peruse.
The fundraiser helps SJMA finance staffing, programs and supplies, Volunteer Coordinator Marly Saunders said.
The nonprofit’s supply of Christmas trees is split pretty evenly between a Wisconsin Christmas tree farm and a collaboration between SJMA and the U.S. Forest Service. The Forest Service designates an area within the San Juan National Forest where people can cut down their own Christmas trees and where SJMA can harvest trees for its fundraiser.
“It’s an area where they are doing fire mitigation anyway, and prescribed burns. So it’s a win-win situation,” Saunders said.
Some trees on display on Saturday featured orange tags designating them as “Charlie Brown Christmas trees,” or trees that aren’t as majestic or lush as a typical Christmas tree and named for the 1965 animated Peanuts special “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”
Saunders said the Charlie Brown Christmas trees were harvested from the San Juan National Forest, and what distinguishes them from other white firs for sale is they don’t quite possess the flare of a traditional Christmas tree.
Ashley Coady Smith, associate director of SJMA, said some of the Charlie Brown Christmas trees might have sprouted underneath already established trees, forcing them to grow out to the side and then upward to maximize their exposure to sunlight.
“There was one woman who came in and she was like, ‘I love that this tree has three tops to it because there’s three of us and it represents each of us,’” Coady Smith said.
Saunders said, “That was so cute. They had a baby.”
Coady Smith said it feels good to help families pick out the right tree just for them – some people want balsam, some prefer white fir, and others want to adopt and love Charlie Brown Christmas trees.
“It’s very personal,” she said.
SJMA’s fundraiser finances trail ambassador, Leave No Trace educational initiatives and other activities that support the San Juan National Forest and other forested mountain areas in Southwest Colorado.
Saunders said the nonprofit’s trail ambassador programs in the San Juan National Forest and the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests are particularly popular.
“Blue Lakes, Ice Lakes, Chicago Basin, for example, we (have) volunteers and we have paid trail ambassadors who go there,” she said. “They talk to people about LNT (Leave No Trace), make sure they use grab bags instead of pooping in the high alpine areas, that kind of thing.”
She said one-on-one education with trail travelers by ambassadors has helped manage visitation and ensure people are treating the Colorado wilderness with due respect.
In one example of work over the summer, SJMA partnered with the Colorado Fourteeners Institute to perform trail work on the Mount Sneffels trail about 77 miles north of Durango.
Trash clean-up projects are another common activity SJMA performs, and it’s easy to coordinate because the Forest Service will clue working groups into areas of the forest that need the most attention.
“We just have the most incredible volunteers,” Saunders said. “And the community in Southwest Colorado that comes out to support SJMA is passionate about taking care of our public lands and our trails and making sure that people know about LNT and inviting people into our wilderness areas in a responsible way. I just love our volunteer base and everyone is so incredible. That’s the amazing part of SJMA.”
cburney@durangoherald.com
