Field Trip

An all day field trip to visit the 2011 Monument Fire in the Huachuca Mountains will take place on Wednesday April 4.

Breakfast will be available at 6:30, vans will load at 7:45 for an 8:00 departure

This all-day field trip to the Huachuca Mountains will provide a chance to look at the geomorphic effects of the 2011 Monument Fire and to see some USGS warning system gauges that have been installed. We’ll leave Biosphere 2 at 8:00 am and travel south to Coronado National Memorial where we’ll see a new type of USGS stream warning cluster gauge that was installed after the Monument Fire. The flood warning gauge transmits river stage and rainfall data from two rain gauges, one at the flood warning site and the other 2 miles away in Montezuma pass. We’ll then travel to the top of the Montezuma Pass to get an overview of the area and talk about some of the highest rain erosion events during the past summer. We can also take a look at the remote rain gauge. We’ll eat lunch at Montezuma Pass.

From there we’ll head north to Miller Canyon where the USGS has installed another gauge in a developed area. Then we’ll head up canyon to see some spectacular channel changes due to post-fire floods and debris flows. Here we’ll also discuss the 1977 Carr Fire as post-fire storms produced debris flows in these same channels. We’ll hike up-channel a short distance to view and discuss ongoing channel changes. We’ll also discuss the challenges the City of Tombstone faces over the next several years as they try to maintain their domestic water supply pipes that sit within the channels of Miller and Carr Canyons. 

Transportation and box lunches will be provided as part of the conference fee.

See here for some backround information on the Monument Fire:

Post-Monument Fire Floods and Debris Flows in the Huachuca Mountains, southern Arizona