Upper Watershed Hikes

Join the Santa Fe Watershed Association for a 5-mile round trip hike into the Municipal Watershed!

Closed to the public since 1932, the Upper Santa Fe Watershed (or Municipal Watershed) has undergone a dramatic transformation during the past two decades to protect our watershed and water supply. Using management tools such as mechanical thinning and prescribed burning, the City of Santa Fe and U.S. Forest Service along with the Santa Fe Watershed Association have been working over the last 20+ years to support the forest’s return to a more natural ecosystem  and mitigate the impact from a wildfire to our water supply.

These FREE tours are your opportunity to learn about the management efforts and catch a glimpse of this nearly pristine forest that supplies about 30% of the City’s drinking water supply. During a 5 mile round trip hike through The Nature Conservancy’s Santa Fe Canyon Preserve and the Upper Municipal Santa Fe Watershed, experts from the Santa Fe Watershed Association, the City of Santa Fe, and U.S. Forest Service lead participants on a hike to Agua Sarca, visiting Nichols Reservoir and covering topics such as the history of Santa Fe’s drinking water supply, how the reservoir systems work, forest thinning and healthy forest ecology, the role of beavers in our watershed, and other topics about the ecology of the Santa Fe Watershed.