We Need Your Help – Volunteer

Crew on Malacoda trail.

Volunteers are encouraged to join SMGA members in cleaning up more than 10 miles of trails in Purgatory and Prospect. There’s a lot of work to be done but first you need to complete a volunteer form. There’s a brief orientation that we’ll ask you to go through. If you come for trail work in flip-flops and shorts we gotta send you home. There’s sharp (tools), pointy (cactus) things out in the wild, and we don’t want you to get hurt. Even though you’ll sign a waiver it’s just good relations to start right — and safe.

When do we work? Most Thursdays (not Christmas Eve but New Year’s Eve) from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. You’ll get an eMail the afternoon before as to the location and directions. We also have a Saturday crew that works most weeks 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. that is focused on Sessoms natural area. We do like our coffee and often meet at a local coffee house after and discuss our next work project.

We’re starting a new crew January 4th on Monday afternoons from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Some of our younger crew might like this better than those cold, early mornings. We hope to have a restoration crew that replaces invasives with native grasses and wildflowers. Right now we have a feral hog problem and we want to use the opportunity of “tilled” soil with appropriate grass seeding.

We’d love to have you or your group join us for a day, or the next few years. There’s certainly a need and every bit of ownership you put in results in an investment in our future.

Working on a re-route for Roadrunner trail.

Purgatory Creek Natural Area took a big hit October 30, 2015 when more than 10″ of rain fell in a few hours right over San Marcos. The enormity of the water in a short time was not rare in the area known as “flash flood alley”. The San Marcos natural areas provide floodzone buffers and help to insure good quality rainwater flowing into the Edwards aquifer, as well as the  San Marcos and Blanco Rivers.